the problem is, with 90% of the economy in NPC hands, there will never be enough scarcity to drive prices high enough to justify great risks
Interdictor class ship?
- Thread starter Montoya
- Start date
Not sure I understand this. I can understand if your argument is that players will have a hard if not impossible time to attempt any sort of market manipulation of common goods let alone rare goods and ships. But at the same time it means rare goods from the edges of the universe will always be highly valued and can never truly be flooded and impact the great rewards of the high-risk trade route.
AFAIK the algorithm governing markets willl have NPCs supplying more or less goods to counter rapid price fluctuations
how will CIG determine the price where reward matches risk? that's the job of free markets
pricing rare goods too high and maintaining that would distort the market the other way by providing an 'easy mode' for earning Credits, with unanticipated consequences
Chris Roberts' intentions are good, but all the tweaking of markets will soon become unmanageable
it's not a sandbox game if CIG has their thumb on the scales all the time
Don't forget the resource dump that is SynthWorld.
They want to make make something like Titanium more/less expensive, adjust the requirement for it on the Artificial planet up 10% and suddenly all NPC's are delivering their cargo to SynthWorld and the rest of the 'Verse raise their payments to try to attract a shipment... Inversely knacker the market for that metal by reducing the requirement for it on Synth to 50% of previous, NPC's start looking to offload fir the best value they can and the markets saturate.
I think they will be able to control the market with that planet quite effectively without having to get in the way of player activity - players who do have access to SW may well find UEE tarrifs not worth bothering with anyway but NPC's could be programmed to have patriotism and prefer to deliver on behalf of the UEE even if the paydirt 'aint all that.
It's not long been out from under the Messer era and that was a good old fashioned tyrany. Some habits are hard to shake, all hail the UEE...
you make my point for me
the knock-on effects from one price change expand infinitely to where maintaining market stability becomes impossible
'managing' the market is a losing proposition
more than one game has died from in-game economies spinning out of control
player driven markets are the answer
edit: the Synthworld system is where my Squadron 999 [TESTES] will be based
it will be ideal for all kinds of combat tournaments
Correct the market will never truely adjust to player involvement for the most part high payout trade routes will always be high paying trade routes and while there is some built-in price fluctuation based on player invovement it will never truly behave like a real market. If I follow you on your lucrative trade route and attempt to sell my cargo shortly after yours the buy price would have a time delay before it returns to the price ceiling from the current price. And I imagine there would also be a price floor to keep currency flowing into a player's coffers. While they do talk about having the player involvement I do not see them spending the time and server resources to incorporate a more realistic model that would allow true price fluctuations based upon supply and demand and so more than likely will end up with a more simplistic time delay pricing model as its easy to manage and easy to balance against other gameplay loops.
You seem to have a handle on this so I was wondering if you could vet my business idea for viability:
Toilet rolls.
After Air, Water and Food it's going to be the thing any ship, space station or moon-base with living people and a toilet can't be without, and I predict there will be a constant need for emergency supply requests considering how unreliable the demand for this resource can be... anything from an explorer ship 3 weeks into a two month cartography mission finding they only have two rolls and a copy of the Encyclopedia Galactica left, to Port Olisar after a dodgy batch of Big Bennys takes its toll on the staff with no supply shipment due until Thursday, any place from inner system to the frontier mining outposts may be struck with the sudden, urgent need for a few SCU of bumwad.
So a fleet of 350R's with the 4 SCU cargo compartment loaded with bog parchment, ready and waiting to fly direct to the disaster area at a moments notice... For the bigger destinations like Olisar a few Connie Taurus with the engines maxed out, flying thousands of feet of paper directly to them in their hour of need... at a premium, of course - it'd be a sellers market.
Once I have made enough to set up my own prediction center I'd be able to grow the wood, process it into paper ensuring quality and value, and ship my own rolls at minimum cost making me even more profit and, hopefully, the games first Bumwad Billionaire.
What do you think? There will undoubtedly be the need for it, but the question is - is it viable?
If you really want to improve your business model make sure you also control or can tamper with Big Benny's to artificially create higher demand.
as things stand, NPCs will flood into the market at the first sign of a price surge, killing your chance to make a killing
however your idea for a toilet roll weapon has real merit
since the toilet rolls are a small percentage of the overall cost, profitability will be less affected by price swings
Ah, yes the TEST Weapons Research Lab TP20,000. Wherever there are people, there will be ammo. Unless they are taring pages out of the Encyclopedia Galactica.
successful thread derail was successful
Look, I love it, this is exactly why people want to fly escort ships and defend trade routes and ships, for me this is one of the more appealing professions/jobs out there, if you have valuable cargo and could just ferry it back and forth with zero risk what's the point of even being an escort fighter or having a group designated to that job. If your a large commercial vessel with a valuable cargo that is worth tons of $$$$ then you have two options, 1) Try and ferry the cargo alone and take 100% of the $$ and risk losing it all to pirates or 2) Ask the TEST escort group to protect the cargo and yes this means you wont make as much $$ but at least your cargo is secure (hopefully) and if someone does jump you at least you have a fighting chance and maybe even take down some ships and get more loots!
Anyways, this to me is what the game is about, its supposed to be realistic and this if in fact this is true just sold me even more on the game and where its headed. Now would I purchase one? No, but to me if there are ships out there like this is exactly why one of my main professions/jobs in SC would be escort.
Anyways, this to me is what the game is about, its supposed to be realistic and this if in fact this is true just sold me even more on the game and where its headed. Now would I purchase one? No, but to me if there are ships out there like this is exactly why one of my main professions/jobs in SC would be escort.
I get the feeling that if @Shadow Reaper would get his wish in game, the complete eradication of all Vanduul would be achieved. While I would be fine with that, my gut tells me that CIG is planning on introducing new species / races that will be increasingly greater threats to those already known within the verse which will require us to unite to defend ourselves & then to defeat them, only to later unite with them as well to take on the next threat.
While there is merit in this, I'm sure that some ships will have toilets that will employ a toilet that also works as a bidet which would effectively render toilet paper needless on those ships. It honestly wouldn't surprise me to see this initially done on Origin ships.
SoloFlyer
Grand Admiral
Toilet rolls? In the future?
I do have some questions though. I recall reading that security forces are already interdicting players now, is that right? Are the interdiction fields as they exist now put out constantly by the NPCs or is it something that gets powered up for a limited time and then shut down? I'd imagine you'd have to leave something else powered down if it's always on. If you can't just sit on a trade route with the field up all the time that limits the utility even further doesn't it?
Yes, security NPC and Pirate NPC already interdict pilots which leads to this terrible script of your warp field collapses with a camera shake. If you do not stop for the security forces to scan your ship then you get a crime stat rating adjustment. If it's a pirate force then the easiest way is to just hit cruise at top speed until you are outside the warp bubble and then continue on your way. Sometimes you will have no interdictions and other times it seems ever few seconds upon entering warp you are interdicted. Mostly it's just really broken.
As for players its not implemented yet or talked about so no clue what it will require but hopefully with this concept/in game ship they will talk about it.
As for players its not implemented yet or talked about so no clue what it will require but hopefully with this concept/in game ship they will talk about it.
Hoplites, MPUV's... I like where your head's are at. BUT... if ya wanna be a real A+ pirate/privateer tool, ya gotta think bigger! Sure we use the Mantis interdiction bubble to grab a ship from Quantum. And I'll even give ya your EMP support vessel to drop it's shields if ya like. BUT, I'm not worried about boarding her, or stealing her, etc. I'll use my GD Reclaimer claw like an Alien® piercing it's prey's chest. Then eat your ship whole, filling up my Reclaimer's stores with valuable resources and components :P
Beware of competition, for someone may simply offer dry-clean service, and therefore achieve 2 goals: multi-use of rolls and saving the environment.
Toilet rolls aren't the worst idea, we have a lot worse anachronisms in SC.
That is a hilarious animation sequence. I just want to say it does not happen often at all. It happens more often traveling between planets, and only once in a while between a planet and its moons. And yeah you can outrun them even if you fly right between the interdicting ships. Not recommended for the cops though... that gets expensive pretty quick. And I'm trying to figure out why ships are stalled when they exit QT. That's just weird, especially if it's supposed to be some kind of low power Alcubierre drive. I'm really glad CR only said that once that I know of.
In that case, you can always amp things up a notch by using distortion weapons on the Hoplites that once the victim ships are disabled they can drop off the assault crews to use multi-tools to weld the doors / hatches closed, strip off all of the weapons & components they can to then toss into a pair of vultures to sell at used parts dealers. Then let the Reclaimer eat the ships with the people alive inside them. If the Reclaimer is equipped with distortion weapons as well, it can help hold the disabled ships down from being able to power up while the crew is dropped off & strips the ships clean.