Supply/Demand: The economics of Starmade

[Malacodor]

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.

If certain asteroids are too rare people just mine planets instead.

 

[Valck]

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.

I'd be fine with the TG taking a fee for providing their stock market services, and acting as a fallback safety net for delivery and maybe even "resources out of thin air" if no player accepts (or accepts and doesn't deliver) a contract for a certain length of time.

I still don't see the necessity for another block (and thus, yet another interface). What would make it so special that it can't be a functional extension of the current shop?

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.

I think production and shipping should ideally and would actually be negotiated implicitly between the trade partners, factored in by the party producing and transporting the goods, and regulated by the willingness of the customer party of paying the mark-up.

As to resources being more uniform than ever, I still haven't lost all hope yet that somebody will eventually see the light...

 

[Captainredfox]

As to resources being more uniform than ever, I still haven't lost all hope yet that somebody will eventually see the light...

What do you mean by 'the light?'

 

[nightrune]

I'd be fine with the TG taking a fee for providing their stock market services, and acting as a fallback safety net for delivery and maybe even "resources out of thin air" if no player accepts (or accepts and doesn't deliver) a contract for a certain length of time.

I still don't see the necessity for another block (and thus, yet another interface). What would make it so special that it can't be a functional extension of the current shop?

I think it would be easier to split what blocks you sell, and what prices to who if they were split into a new block.

Trade Module 1, higher prices, Set for all neutral parties
Trade Module 2, lower prices, Specific goods, Set for all allies or specific faction.
Trade Module 3, insane prices, used to selll to pirates or a sort of black market.

Basically Economies of Economies. I feel like having a block is a bit more immersive to manage, and not a cluttered over used trade screen with a ton of tabs.
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What do you mean by 'the light?'

I think he means that we need resource scarcity and rarity.

 

[Valck]

What do you mean by 'the light?'

I think resources need the option to be distributed unevenly across the universe - not necessarily completely unavailable, but for every resource a chance of being more common in some regions, and more rare in others. "Region" could mean a system, a constellation, a spiral arm, or even a whole galaxy, and might be different for each individual resource, and different in different universes (servers).
If a server decides to have completely even resource distribution, it should be possible through the configuration. Likewise, if a server decides to have some resource extremely rare or even unavailable, setting that via config would be the way to go.
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I think it would be easier to split what blocks you sell, and what prices to who if they were split into a new block.

Trade Module 1, higher prices, Set for all neutral parties
Trade Module 2, lower prices, Specific goods, Set for all allies or specific faction.
Trade Module 3, insane prices, used to selll to pirates or a sort of black market.

Basically Economies of Economies. I feel like having a block is a bit more immersive to manage, and not a cluttered over used trade screen with a ton of tabs.

Good point.
I still think that could be done without a new block. If it were possible to have more than one shop on a station, you could set up one module to cater to allies, one to faction members only, and another one to deal with the rest.
It would probably require to redesign the "b" key interface a bit since you don't have "the" one shop anymore, but I think that would be required anyway to accommodate an expanded market functionality. But that's implementation details and as such is Schine's domain, so I wouldn't want to speculate too much about that.


EDIT:
Darn it, I really hate this "double post" merge function... I intentionally addressed two distinct points (and this edit being a third), and it would be really helpful if people could dis/-agree with either of them individually and distinctly.
Sorry for that mini rant, forum software's fault ;)

 

[Nickizzy]

I think one big problem is the lack of cost change. There is no change in price between levels of construction(one crystal is worth the same refined, the same processed, and the same comstructed into a system). Of cource, there are a variety of reasons why we don't have this, an obious one is the lack of cost on energy, but to format that you need fuel(I love fuel!) that some people just don't like, and has it's own difficulties.

If each level of crafting gave you an extra 10% cost (or whatever bonus), then you could buy crystals from miners, refine it, and sell it to constructors or shops to make a profit. ex. Crystal costs 120, with 50% boost rate the 10 composite and 5 capsules you get are worth...(algibra!) 5 per composite, 26 per capsule, a net worth of 180, or a profit.

 

[kiraen]

I think resources need the option to be distributed unevenly across the universe<snip>

First, I agree with this. Another 'region' I've seen mentioned is star types.

But let's not forget player production based scarcity. Certain manufactured commodities will be rare simply because they are not used very often or are not popular. Not everyone is going to want to set up and/or modify their factories to produce pink lights. And then someone will log in and want to create a pony themed rec station. Supply and demand.

I still think that could be done without a new block. <snip>

We don't need a new block -or- additional shop blocks. Simply be able to set discounts/price tiers in the Faction Block.


I think that people are way over thinking the economic systems. Supply and demand is not something you program. It's a law of nature.
If I'm the only person with pink lights I can charge whatever I want. If I charge to much, nobody will buy from me. If I charge to little, I lose money. If I have to haul my product 3 sectors I will charge less then if I have to haul it 10 sectors. It's called overhead, you will have to pay your crew. Unless you don't have a crew, which means a smaller ship and smaller cargo. Of course, if I have 3 rotating jump drives then my overhead is less. Also, I can charge extra for express delivery (I have to make up the money I spent on those jump drives after all).

All we need is the ability to set prices, then everything will balance itself out on it's own. Everyone will buy from the cheapest source. But each source will charge as much as they can get away with.

 

[nightrune]

Bench replied to this thread. It's quite a mix of other ideas, and I thought it would be good here as well.

There's a lot of plans for the economy, with extensive plans regarding everything from shop management to supply and demand etc.

Saying that though this does open up some interesting ideas and I'll be noting them down to discuss with the other team members working on economy stuff.

My mentality is I only want to have to fix things once. Going back and changing things again and again takes time away from working on other stuff that helps put foundations in place for other aspects.

But for me the other thing is making sure whatever we put in is not just for its own, one use. It should be able to be used in a number of ways, and integrate well with the rest of the game in a way that makes sense but is also enjoyable. For example, a lot of people had ideas about how rails should be implemented, but what we ended putting in made so many different things possible. Similarly a lot of people have ideas on missions or bounties or crew or shops or whatever, and while in the current game it might be a good addition; what we instead have in store goes way further and ultimately makes for a more inclusive, engaging, and fulfilling experience that works in the ever changing environment of StarMade.

In relation to this idea, I can already see ways we could implement it and tie it into other plans for the game. Since most of what this could integrate with is in relation to stuff made aware to the community as a whole through our Development Direction news post, here's what I can picture.

In the current plans there's some new stuff that will change regarding factions, but for now we'll include faction stations as part of the example.

So what I can picture is that faction stations with a shop module and an additional block or two (TBC) will be able to connect to the Frontier Marketplace or whatever we call it. Where you can show what you've got up for sale, or see any requests, similar to the Exchange showcased in the OP. This wouldn't be necessarily managed by the Trading Guild however they would obviously have a big presence. On here you may also see any missions that you could accept, such as taking on board a transport mission to deliver items for a commission. All of this could all be driven by your stances with factions however, so I could imagine for example if your faction is allied with the Scavs (currently pirates) then you'd see what they have up for offer and have transport missions for them, but you won't see what the TG has on offer, because you're diplomatic stance with them is that you and the TG are enemies. While you might not see any information around their trade routes etc you might possibly, while flying around in space, encounter another player currently engaged in a TG transport mission, and so you might then be prompted with the opportunity to accept a pillage mission to attack the transport and acquire what's being transported. However the opposite could happen as well, where someone attacks your own transport that you requested or are currently engaged in transporting.

Similarly the marketplace or exchange or whatever you want to call it could be where you view all the open bounties at the moment, again they could be contextual, i.e. a player or faction might put up a bounty only available to them and their allies, or it could be open to anyone, resulting in perhaps a team mate turning to try and take you down to cash in on the bounty on your head.

Mattering what we want to do and balancing, the marketplace could easily extend to let you place ships that you've built, up for credits, or even a design that you've done that another player might like the blueprint or design of. However this easily gets into exploitation if one player purchases a ship blueprint then puts that same blueprint up for sale to compete with the original players' listing.

Who knows, beyond selling and buying blocks, there might even be a market for creatures or items from creatures; or all manner of other items.

The contextual setup that I have in my mind will restrict access to within a certain proximity to a station or planet that's set up to access the marketplace. That setup works best with our other plans, making the marketplace not an instant access sort of thing, while providing a solution to obviously all the logistical aspects of it.
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So as you can see there's a lot of opportunities to expand what is possible. While none of this is confirmed, mere speculation on the idea on my behalf, there's some interesting ideas that can come out of it.