Supply/Demand: The economics of Starmade

[nightrune]

The Goal:
Give a real reason to build a ship, and make the universe feel more alive while adding a trading dynamic that is useful for even the NPC traders or for creating a black market.

Overall Idea:
We should definitely be able to set a Supply, and Demand. My personal opnion is that it should be a new block. I'm going to call this block the Trade Module even though it could be added to the Shop Block, but I think they should be different to encourge trade routes and different shops. This idea may be incomplete. Please poke holes in it, and brainstorm! I love the idea of being able to be a freighter or smuggler based on player/NPC actions in the game.

Initial Supply:
You can link this block to storage, and set a price based on the items you have in there.

Initial Demand:
This looks like a standard shop menu, here you set a maximum price you are willing to pay, the amount and exactly what block you want. You should be able to select between one time and continual. This should allow someone to request materials and setup a very effecient/fast armor factory and sell that back.

Trade Modules interact with other trade modules, but only if you are neutral or allied with that faction. They should only be able to trade within a certain distance, but this could be affected by neutral or allied warp gates.

How the Trade Modules Interact:
Every so often, maybe every 5 mins (This is not final, just a starting number) your Trade Module checks the stores within a certain distance. This propogates the demand and supply out to the the trade modules. If they have the stock and the price is fair the trade module will post a quest/errand to move the supplies to the other trade module. Any one that is neutral or allied with you can fulfill this, but you should be able to select.

This should create choke points and trade centers, and give more reasons for people to interact.

Each quest should have a time limit (This will be hard to calculate balance, but its doable). If you fail to either return or deliver the goods you are automatically at war until you pay back the balance.

How the Trade Guild Interacts:
The Trade guild if you are allied or neutral will facilitate this in lieu of other players. It'll suddenly be very alive at your base if you are mining. They will show up buy resources from you and leave, or drop off


The Awesome Fallout of this!
These convoy's could be player driven time based events, and you could make money. These should be on a local jobs board, but everyone should be able to see them. Probably only for your sector though. You could sucumb to piracy and never deliver the goods though! Dropping your standing with the Trade Guild. Then you could watch the sectors for players jumping grabbing the quests, and maybe pirate them yourself. The reason for the time above is to allow human players to jump in as the convoy, and to add an element of the aliveness to the universe. Quests build good standing with the trade guild and might act as kind of a easing into the economy since you can't set demand yet, but you are a scrapy freighter pilot that lives for dangerous routes.

I think that in concept this isn't terrible to implement its got a very easy 1:1 relationship with player demand and player source. Its quite possible that any NPC AI could use this system pretty easily as well. Making it useful for the procedurally generated factions.

Something else this might do is create a real reason to have a blockcade. Where you block all the resources coming into a faction from the trade guild and what not.

Things I think I need help with:
- Balancing Smuggling vs Real Shipping
- Calculating the Time
- Calculating the pricing for transit.

 

[terra mining corp.]

you could base the transit on % of retail value , and have listed parties tender bids for a short time , It would also add to the rp as competing factions could pirate each other leading to a "police or military faction" to intervene

 

[lupoCani]

A very similar idea was recently discussed at some length, with basis in the grand exchange system of RuneScape. I'll repeat what I said there- this is needlessly complicated.

Firstly, make player-owned shops able to register themselves to a central, universal database, along with their resources and demands. Second, implement the quest system we already have confirmation on, and allow quests to the effect of "buy this here and sell it to me". That should be all we need for a full-fledged economy.

 

[nightrune]

A very similar idea was recently discussed at some length, with basis in the grand exchange system of RuneScape. I'll repeat what I said there- this is needlessly complicated.

Firstly, make player-owned shops able to register themselves to a central, universal database, along with their resources and demands. Second, implement the quest system we already have confirmation on, and allow quests to the effect of "buy this here and sell it to me". That should be all we need for a full-fledged economy.

I originally posted it there. It only appears complex. Interactions with it are limited to setting supply/demand, accepting quests to transit goods (which can be through the board we've been promised I don't care.) and tracking down smugglers.

Down to implementation details this can still be a single database, but this creates trade routes, choke points, reasons for stations, ways to interact with the npcs in a way. Hell you could actually be trading with an NPC faction on the other side of the galaxy and not know it.

 

[Malacodor]

Firstly, make player-owned shops able to register themselves to a central, universal database, along with their resources and demands. Second, implement the quest system we already have confirmation on, and allow quests to the effect of "buy this here and sell it to me". That should be all we need for a full-fledged economy.

The quest part isn't even needed. Players can simply check the database and see where they can buy stuff cheap and where they can sell it with profit.

 

[lupoCani]

The quest part isn't even needed. Players can simply check the database and see where they can buy stuff cheap and where they can sell it with profit.

That is true. Thank you.

I originally posted it there. It only appears complex. Interactions with it are limited to setting supply/demand, accepting quests to transit goods (which can be through the board we've been promised I don't care.) and tracking down smugglers.

Down to implementation details this can still be a single database, but this creates trade routes, choke points, reasons for stations, ways to interact with the npcs in a way. Hell you could actually be trading with an NPC faction on the other side of the galaxy and not know it.

I'm not saying it's complex, I'm saying it's needlessly complex. Limited ranges, automated quest posting, entirely new blocks even. These are artificial and automagical functions, while they might work well for any specific thing, they're an impractical way of building a sandbox game.

When a simple upgrade to an existing block can achieve the same core functionality, it's generally the prefferable option.

 

[Valck]

The quest part isn't even needed. Players can simply check the database and see where they can buy stuff cheap and where they can sell it with profit.

I'm not saying it's complex, I'm saying it's needlessly complex. Limited ranges, automated quest posting, entirely new blocks even. These are artificial and automagical functions, while they might work well for any specific thing, they're an impractical way of building a sandbox game.

Schine are working at implementing a mission system anyway, so why not connect both?
One of the problems with any mission system is dearth of content.
Either it is repetitive, modular, procedurally generated run-of-the-mill "rescue princess X for the umpteenth time", or it is lovingly hand-crafted, and will be seen once at most by any player.

Where's the problem if some central trading "database" (in an in-game sense) system, which we seem to agree is desirable, could also provide useful data to the mission system as a side effect?

I'd prefer to have actual convoys deliver actual goods to an actual destination over fake AI playing pretend any day.
Instead of having "procedurally generated" cookie cutter content, why not take the opportunity that presents itself with such a wealth of data and required interaction, and fill the universe with believable life.
Why not allow players to tie into that system with their own (re-)quests for cargo that can either be filled by other players, or if nobody takes it up, after a while will be loaded onto the next Trade Guild ship headed your way.

Pirates can gather where trade actually happens. Pirate hunters can gather where pirates actually happen. Traders can avoid routes where there are too many pirates, or too few pirate hunters, thereby creating new trade routes, and new opportunities for pirates.
All the calculations necessary can still run as simple subroutines in the background, as an exploding convoy doesn't produce a flash when nobody is around to see it, but when an encounter takes place, it can actually have a meaningful outcome for at least one, ideally two or even three players.

Of course the player shouldn't be forced to go through a "questing interface" when simply trying to buy/sell stuff on the market, but if you want your stuff delivered to you, why not make use of the mission system, and at the same time provide it with procedural data that is not simply random numbers?
And yes, the farther away you buy stuff, the higher the risk of it not arriving if you don't actually go get it yourself, so some distance layering makes sense, too.

 

[nightrune]

Schine are working at implementing a mission system anyway, so why not connect both?
One of the problems with any mission system is dearth of content.
Either it is repetitive, modular, procedurally generated run-of-the-mill "rescue princess X for the umpteenth time", or it is lovingly hand-crafted, and will be seen once at most by any player.

Where's the problem if some central trading "database" (in an in-game sense) system, which we seem to agree is desirable, could also provide useful data to the mission system as a side effect?

I'd prefer to have actual convoys deliver actual goods to an actual destination over fake AI playing pretend any day.
Instead of having "procedurally generated" cookie cutter content, why not take the opportunity that presents itself with such a wealth of data and required interaction, and fill the universe with believable life.
Why not allow players to tie into that system with their own (re-)quests for cargo that can either be filled by other players, or if nobody takes it up, after a while will be loaded onto the next Trade Guild ship headed your way.

Pirates can gather where trade actually happens. Pirate hunters can gather where pirates actually happen. Traders can avoid routes where there are too many pirates, or too few pirate hunters, thereby creating new trade routes, and new opportunities for pirates.
All the calculations necessary can still run as simple subroutines in the background, as an exploding convoy doesn't produce a flash when nobody is around to see it, but when an encounter takes place, it can actually have a meaningful outcome for at least one, ideally two or even three players.

Of course the player shouldn't be forced to go through a "questing interface" when simply trying to buy/sell stuff on the market, but if you want your stuff delivered to you, why not make use of the mission system, and at the same time provide it with procedural data that is not simply random numbers?
And yes, the farther away you buy stuff, the higher the risk of it not arriving if you don't actually go get it yourself, so some distance layering makes sense, too.

It's also really good way to get new players up and running fast. You get a ship with basic weapons, and a cargo hold and start moving stuff around for people. You can even do it for the ai factions so you have some protection. It lets them explore, and maybe the ai factions would let you dock to thier home base.

 

[Malacodor]

Schine are working at implementing a mission system anyway, so why not connect both?
One of the problems with any mission system is dearth of content.
Either it is repetitive, modular, procedurally generated run-of-the-mill "rescue princess X for the umpteenth time", or it is lovingly hand-crafted, and will be seen once at most by any player.

Where's the problem if some central trading "database" (in an in-game sense) system, which we seem to agree is desirable, could also provide useful data to the mission system as a side effect?

I'd prefer to have actual convoys deliver actual goods to an actual destination over fake AI playing pretend any day.
Instead of having "procedurally generated" cookie cutter content, why not take the opportunity that presents itself with such a wealth of data and required interaction, and fill the universe with believable life.
Why not allow players to tie into that system with their own (re-)quests for cargo that can either be filled by other players, or if nobody takes it up, after a while will be loaded onto the next Trade Guild ship headed your way.

Pirates can gather where trade actually happens. Pirate hunters can gather where pirates actually happen. Traders can avoid routes where there are too many pirates, or too few pirate hunters, thereby creating new trade routes, and new opportunities for pirates.
All the calculations necessary can still run as simple subroutines in the background, as an exploding convoy doesn't produce a flash when nobody is around to see it, but when an encounter takes place, it can actually have a meaningful outcome for at least one, ideally two or even three players.

Of course the player shouldn't be forced to go through a "questing interface" when simply trying to buy/sell stuff on the market, but if you want your stuff delivered to you, why not make use of the mission system, and at the same time provide it with procedural data that is not simply random numbers?
And yes, the farther away you buy stuff, the higher the risk of it not arriving if you don't actually go get it yourself, so some distance layering makes sense, too.

Let's say a shop is set to buy 1000 reactor blocks for 100 credits each. Then one player with spare reactors can read about it in the database and bring them to said shop. Another player then receives a quest for delivering these reactors, which was automatically generated off the same database. But by the time the player with the quest arrives they can't finish it since the other one was faster. If I played a game which gave me troll quests on a regular basis I'd demand a refund.

 

[nightrune]

Let's say a shop is set to buy 1000 reactor blocks for 100 credits each. Then one player with spare reactors can read about it in the database and bring them to said shop. Another player then receives a quest for delivering these reactors, which was automatically generated off the same database. But by the time the player with the quest arrives they can't finish it since the other one was faster. If I played a game which gave me troll quests on a regular basis I'd demand a refund.

No, we can agree on that, it would suck and is not a good experience for anyone. The ideas could both live together though. You could just remove the demand from the list once you've taken the quest, or mark it as pending, or even better list the convoy on its way, or ship names.

 

[Malacodor]

You could just remove the demand from the list once you've taken the quest, or mark it as pending, or even better list the convoy on its way, or ship names.

This won't stop players who are already on their way to delivery if they even notice it, and if they do, it will rather encourage them to hurry.

 

[nightrune]

This won't stop players who are already on their way to delivery if they even notice it, and if they do, it will rather encourage them to hurry.

You could just say you are going to fulfil it, and accept it as a quest from the main window as well. Then it would be fine.

 

[Malacodor]

You could just say you are going to fulfil it, and accept it as a quest from the main window as well. Then it would be fine.

Then players could accept requests as quests just to prevent other players from doing so without actually delivering any items.

 

[nightrune]

Then players could accept requests as quests just to prevent other players from doing so without actually delivering any items.

Let the second person accept it with the associated risk then, but they'll know then.

 

[kiraen]

Penalties for non delivery.

 

[Nickizzy]

Maybe the delivery goes back to the quest page after a certain amount of time, and you couldn't select that quest again for x amount of time

 

[nightrune]

A timeout was what I was thinking, but a rival faction could watch the trade window and force an embargo that way. I haven't quite thought around it.

 

[Valck]

A timeout was what I was thinking, but a rival faction could watch the trade window and force an embargo that way. I haven't quite thought around it.

An option to make delivery contracts visible to faction/allies only, that should take care of the immediate risk of a competitor "rerouting" your stock. It could also open an opportunity for player business, factions that act as freight forwarders, or insurance companies.
I think there should always be a minimum potential for uncertainty, unless both sides buy and sell at the same actual shop.

 

[Captainredfox]

The problem with the economy is that labor involved in production and shipping is not calculated.
Now that all asteroids are super common I think the economy is even worse off, as well.

 

[nightrune]

An option to make delivery contracts visible to faction/allies only, that should take care of the immediate risk of a competitor "rerouting" your stock. It could also open an opportunity for player business, factions that act as freight forwarders, or insurance companies.
I think there should always be a minimum potential for uncertainty, unless both sides buy and sell at the same actual shop.

In my ideal case, you have a new block, and you set what factions can trade with it. That way you can trade commodities with the trade guild at market, and then behind the scenes there might be a black market, or an allies only trading scheme.