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Limiting Script Automation will Hinder Economic Growth


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Automated mining is bad for a mmorpg.

1)If i can build a bot, i can use the resources it gathers to build another, and so on i could build an army of bots. If you limit the amount of bot you can havem people are just going to multiaccount like crazy, keeping their pc running 24/7 with bots mining for them. And if you limit this with other mechanics, they'll find a way to exploit those too.

That is one of the main reason people wants to have auto-mining : to create replicating bots.

But no one said it would have to be easy to do.

There is several possible limitations that I already discussed in a thread on the question : https://board.dualthegame.com/index.php?/topic/1418-self-replicating-robots/?p=31347

 

 

1 bot for each player is already an insane amount of resources, since the bots have to mine a decent amount to justify the risk of losing them (they'd be made of ontainers, thrusters, and more valuable elements). This would kill the mining activity

Not necessarily and you do offer one solution in your comment : riskiness

If a mining bot is less efficient than a player, cost a lot of resources and are easy to destroy (no armor) then it would be risky to create one and it would only be profitable if you hide or defend them well over time : that's a BIG limitation for the proliferation of said bots.

On the other hand it could create a particular gameplay where you would hunt for them in order to destroy them or steal them, kind an emergent a treasure hunt.

 

 

 

As long player interaction is needed, there can be balance.

Having mining bots doesn't mean players won't be needed. You would have to refuel, repair, guide and defend them. You may want to hunt and target them to hinder the production of your enemy etc...

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Indeed, as I understand reasoning behind this decision, lack of automation having a LUA in-game at the same time, is kind of contradiction.  I am sure this could be balanced if allowed. Many of you had some ideas already. Slower mining, lower yield, no skill progress when using it etc. 

 

What really concerns me is, that I came across  dev blog (don't quite remember what subject exactly) and over there authors were trying to convince us this game will be balanced for players that play around 2-3h per day without a need to be attached to the screen 24/7. 

 

Surely automation could actually help to achieve that goal, by not giving advantage to kids or students that have plenty of spare time on their hands ;)

This is a first time I feel a bit disappointed there is no more thought put into this area other just cut it out because it's easier.

 

The fact you need to be present for scripts to run is good enough to prevent some mass mining operations anyway. 

 

Anyway, I am sure people creativity will not stop here and where is an opportunity to take advantage people will try to exploit the system with given tools anyway.

Put few crew members in front of the ship with drills on auto click and program the ship via LUA and you have a semi-automatic drill. Your colleagues can go to work while you take a shift :D

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Unfortunately the OP and a few others are equating the level of resources players have access to and the quality of the player experience. Even in the real world, a person's access to physical resources and their happiness do not correspond perfectly, there are even people who take a vow of poverty to grant more meaning to their life.

 

Games need challenge. Poverty presents a challenge. Colonists struggling to survive is itself a good game challenge. (To be fair, so is figuring out a automation scheme) Cheap resources could easily result in a situation where fewer tasks feel like a challenge. This would make our fictional colonists happy, but our real world players bored.

 

Capitalism is bad for balance between players. The player without capital cannot compete against the player with capital, and may feel more frustration than fun. This could play out a dozen different ways, the most obvious being a big ship fighting a small ship. The player without could also be frustrated they they simply cannot contribute much the economy, jealous the rich player, or feel forced to join up with the rich player. Players with capital might be forced essentially hire others, but the fact that they would have so much power over their employees could make things incredibly frustrating for said employees. Having a boss inside the game is terrible.

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You really can't compare the DU economy (or government) with the real world economy, they have different goals.  The real world economy involves real people and the goal should be to most efficiently allocate resources justly among those people.

 

DU is a different story; the end goal of the economy should be to create the most enjoyable time for all players (regardless of how much time they can devote).  It's a game.  The point is to be a game.

 

The only way to balance gameplay to allow new players to join is if they are able to gather resources at a fairly comparable rate to all veteran players.  Otherwise, the game will shrivel and die because new players will not be able to compete; they would be at the mercy of the players who control the resource gathering.  

 

While it is very true that the DU economy will be very inefficient; the goal isn't efficiency; the goal is balanced gameplay.  Futhermore, an efficient economy that allows maximum resource gathering would eventually allow organizations to build a nearly limitless fleet of ships and cities.

 

I would like to see a distant expansion allow some mining elements to give a slight advantage at resource mining; but this should not be in the game initially.  Also, elements shouldn't allow a player to mine when the character is loggen in but inactive.

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Does anyone remember mining in SWG. It was automated but the miner had to constantly maintain and remove product. A good example of a happy medium I think

Yeah but the thing that was the equalizer was the different quality level of the resources you mined and gathered. So even if you had whole fields of mining/gathering equipment the quality may vary and hence could never really corner or flood the market too badly.

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Yeah but the thing that was the equalizer was the different quality level of the resources you mined and gathered. So even if you had whole fields of mining/gathering equipment the quality may vary and hence could never really corner or flood the market too badly.

Yes but if I remember correctly mining in SWG was node based. In DU its not so that brings up a lot more complications towards automated mining.

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Yes but if I remember correctly mining in SWG was node based. In DU its not so that brings up a lot more complications towards automated mining.

Right, well the nodes were rather large and would deplete over time.  I'm not advocating for auto mining, btw. Was just saying to the other poster that auto mining in SWG worked fine because of factors that may not be present in this game, hence why it wouldn't be good for this game.

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Right, well the nodes were rather large and would deplete over time. I'm not advocating for auto mining, btw. Was just saying to the other poster that auto mining in SWG worked fine because of factors that may not be present in this game, hence why it wouldn't be good for this game.

I know Pang. ;)

And I agree completely.

There are many reasons why for now manually mining/digging is the best solution.

 

(So the resources in SWG were finite?)

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I know Pang. ;)

And I agree completely.

There are many reasons why for now manually mining/digging is the best solution.

 

(So the resources in SWG were finite?)

Yeah after a while you'd have to move your equipment to a new site. It wasn't so much the nodes would deplete as they would move sort of. Like water for example, you would scan for the best quality could find and/or the largest node, drop down your equipment and start collecting. Then after a while you would deplete the high quality stuff and would need to move you equipment to find the high quality stuff again. You could continue to mine in same spot but the quality would go down and collection rate would vary as well. For its times it was a really innovative system and nothing that has really ever been matched since. But yeah SWG really was ahead of the times I think.

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Yea I think scripted mining would be a very bad idea.  Players like me would abuse the shit out of it and then sell inflated ores.  Why would I do that?  Because I could cheaply take a lot of it...a lot that you guys need.  

I think there needs to be a clear defined process unlike SE.  I think you should be forced to mine it first, then take it to a refinery which cannot be placed in a movable object, and then moved to a constructor to create the desired object from the refined materials.  By doing this you force stages and prevent the majority of players from mass mining operations (although some of us will still choose ore as our careers and will still do it).  

I think it would be a mistake to do what Space engineers did and make the constructor and refinery objects that you can place in movable objects.   

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Yea I think scripted mining would be a very bad idea.  Players like me would abuse the shit out of it and then sell inflated ores.  Why would I do that?  Because I could cheaply take a lot of it...a lot that you guys need.  

 

I think there needs to be a clear defined process unlike SE.  I think you should be forced to mine it first, then take it to a refinery which cannot be placed in a movable object, and then moved to a constructor to create the desired object from the refined materials.  By doing this you force stages and prevent the majority of players from mass mining operations (although some of us will still choose ore as our careers and will still do it).  

 

I think it would be a mistake to do what Space engineers did and make the constructor and refinery objects that you can place in movable objects.   

I'm glad you mentioned SE, because I was about to chime in.

 

A huge use for materials in the real world is for maintenance. Replacement parts, glues, welding, etc. Unfortunately, a lot of games skip this because "it's not fun" (It isn't so much, but I'll get to that.) If you allow automated mining without any maintenance costs, you get Space Engineers: A hard struggle to get enough, follow immediately by rapid over abundance.

 

Maintenance, especially of the mining elements, would reduce this sudden plateau and allow the game to naturally balance more. (You'd still need to balance equipment costs vs mining rates). As large organizations mined more, their costs to mine more and continue to mine more would grow as well. It wouldn't just be "Can we afford another drill?" But "Can we afford the upkeep and another drill and it's upkeep?".

 

Ultimately, I think this is something that should be tested in Alpha or Beta, rather than speculated about. There's too many moving parts involved to accurately understand the impact.

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You realise the devs said there wont be mining ships?

 

That means no elements for mining.

No elements means nothing to script.

Nothing to script means no automation.

 

Maybe instead of asking for automation of mining you should start by asking for mining elements.

 

:)

"

A wonderful day to you, Falstaf.  

 

Could you I humbly ask that you be a little more clear? 

 

Did the developers say that there will be no mining ships, or did they say that there would be no mining ships, yet? 

 

Either way, I agree that automation for mining should be limited if not non-existent. Allowing robots to mine planets will be--if I may be so dramatic--a disaster. Planets will look deformed, ugly and drained of resources. In which case, the organisation with more resources to build more mining robots than the next three runners up combined will be worse than a full scale war. 

 

I wish you a pleasant day.

"

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"

A wonderful day to you, Falstaf.

 

Could you I humbly ask that you be a little more clear?

 

Did the developers say that there will be no mining ships, or did they say that there would be no mining ships, yet?

"

Hello Aetherios JC said there wont be any mining ships. So that means there wont be any elements that have a mining function.

Combine this with the things he said about mass mining by 1 person driving out the beginning miner it seems clear to me what he thinks about it.

 

Of course things can change with expansions. Or even during alpha and beta. Things are always changing during development.

 

But personally I hope it wont change because mining is the foundation of the economy and one of the things that needs regulation, in my opinion. :)

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Hello Aetherios JC said there wont be any mining ships. So that means there wont be any elements that have a mining function.

Combine this with the things he said about mass mining by 1 person driving out the beginning miner it seems clear to me what he thinks about it.

 

Of course things can change with expansions. Or even during alpha and beta. Things are always changing during development.

 

But personally I hope it wont change because mining is the foundation of the economy and one of the things that needs regulation, in my opinion. :)

"

A wonderful day to you, Falstaf--and thank you for your swift reply. 

 

While it may be harder to mine on planets and asteroids on an individual scale without mining ships, I nonetheless see the truth and wisdom in that decision. A fleet of mining ships may work for other games where mining is limited to asteroids; harvesting gases and ice from planets; and resources are extracted without deforming the face of a beautiful landscape or planet, mining ships might clearly not work for Dual Universe. 

 

I can't say I agree right now, but I would have reached the same opinion later on--I'm glad the developers had the foresight. 

 

Many thanks again, for clearing that up for me. 

 

Have a splendid day.

"

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While it may be harder to mine on planets and asteroids on an individual scale without mining ships, I nonetheless see the truth and wisdom in that decision. A fleet of mining ships may work for other games where mining is limited to asteroids; harvesting gases and ice from planets; and resources are extracted without deforming the face of a beautiful landscape or planet,

"

:)

 

Also you have to remember that in other MMO's mining is node based. Resources are fixed points that deplete and regenerate based on a timer. In DU mining is like minecraft so you dont have the same control over resources entering the economy as in a node based system.

 

And I think automating a non node based system opens up quite a few technical and gameplay issues. If your resource vein isnt linear but organicly shaped you would have to interupt your automation so many times you would loose a lot of time. Time better spend manually digging.

 

I think there are many reasons to keep mining as it is right now. But you never know what the future brings of course.

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:)

 

Also you have to remember that in other MMO's mining is node based. Resources are fixed points that deplete and regenerate based on a timer. In DU mining is like minecraft so you dont have the same control over resources entering the economy as in a node based system.

 

And I think automating a non node based system opens up quite a few technical and gameplay issues. If your resource vein isnt linear but organicly shaped you would have to interupt your automation so many times you would loose a lot of time. Time better spend manually digging.

 

I think there are many reasons to keep mining as it is right now. But you never know what the future brings of course.

"

A wonderful day to you, Falstaf.

 

Yes, indeed. But, as far as Dual Universe is concerned, the future brings hope and game release. Hopefully, many updates will be in tow, spanning Dual Universe's long life.

"

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  • 3 weeks later...

Well, looks like majority of you dislike idea of mining automation. But once again I will remind you how easy is to keep the game and market well balanced if you stick to only 1 rule. Keep amount of energy to be a unit of every activity performed in game.

 

If I have a drone that cost me some resources/currency then I have to spend extra for maintenance and fuel all your worries are unjustified.

 

If it will be cheaper to dig some common ore by hand, I will do so when time permits. Simply because cost of automated mining will overcome my profit. So probably I would not use it for cheap materials at all. Some of you mentioned SE. Well I was running SE server myself trying to create some economy based on their game play. And trust me, vanilla SE is very badly balanced game. Nobody in RL using helicopters to mine resources on Planet for god sake! :D. But they do!.  And not only because of engineering difficulties but mostly because economical reasons. You can also create drilling platforms and that's much better option, but you have to operate it at time to time.

 

However, if I will decide to use helicopter/drone/plane/pus chair for mining operations because I have plenty of fuel, I'm filthy rich, it's my loss.

I'm not destroying economy by doing this. I simply throwing my wealth on it. But maybe instead playing 24/7 I may as well enjoy a game 3h per day and be able to keep up.

 

Using same argument even in normal conditions without automation, will you stop me selling any good below market prices? Even if I will sell with loss? Because this is what essentially it would come down to.

 

Add to this no skill progress when using drones, less quality or quantity. It's all perfectly balance-able IMHO. It's simply easier not to do it and call it a feature. I hope creators will rethink some aspects of this for future releases. Especially when writing scripts for such automated tools will actually help economy. Those programmers waiting to get their hands on LUA will end up with few scripts for flying behavior on the market, because how many variations you can possibly have?. Rest of them, jobless will go digging instead ;)

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1) there is no skill progression whatsoever in DU at all

 

2) Even with fuel/maintenance: mine large amounts of whatever resource. Hide it, sit on it. Fuck up the market with that resource, price goes up, dump all your shit on the market. Where exactly is this balanced?

 

3) still a bad idea which won't happen, as already stated by jc

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1) there is no skill progression whatsoever in DU at all

 

Well, there is, how is calculated is another story, but using automation could exclude skill progression.

 

 

2) Even with fuel/maintenance: mine large amounts of whatever resource. Hide it, sit on it. Fuck up the market with that resource, price goes up, dump all your shit on the market. Where exactly is this balanced?

 

You didn't read or misunderstand me above.

 

Let's say

Iron ore is on the market for $100/tone

To dig it up by hand I need.. time. Let's say 1h.

Then I have option:

Using drone I need to be present in order for script to run this operation. (Maybe busy building something)

Same drone will spend 2h to give me same amount.

It will burn Fuel within 2h that in Planetary conditions will simply cost me $300.

Mining equipment may have durability or simply break so... I will need even more to maintain it.

 

So sure, this way I can turn tedious job to auto grind. And yeah, I can possibly mine more over the time if I can afford it. Because I am not performing a business activity here whatsoever. How is that profitable? Everyone can dump whatever and as much as he wish and you will not stop free market. If I'm stupid enough to dump this on the market I'm certainly not contributor to the global economy when amount of resource is limited on this planet. In fact I would make this resource more valuable over the time by digging more and dumping with my loss.

 

But for someone who like to go to work or have a family life (IF i can afford it automation could be an option for me) Because I could mine and build and manage at the same time.

 

 

3) still a bad idea which won't happen, as already stated by jc

 

Matter of opinion but,

 

consider this:

 

1. Same automated drone could be cheaper in space / asteroids. It would make it more profitable. Force people to fly into orbit, space, search expeditions, create transports, escorts, Stimulate market more, encourage pirates. Simply more interaction.

 

2. Variety of scripts would contribute to the market and LUA programmers to actually BE a profession. Having few flying scripts will be set after few first days of gameplay and nobody will ever consider it as a serious profession in game if this is the only purpose to have LUA.

 

3. If such tools are available for everyone market will balance itself no matter you grinding by hand or large volumes. In fact newbie way would remain the most profitable and preferable for starters no matter what.

 

4. If this is going to be a game to spend 8h under the ground per day to mine resource I'd rather get back to the office, same tedious s**t ;). I have no chance with those who have lot's of spare time. The audience is kind of limited to maniacs. Games are for fun after all. 

 

We were there already many times, Technic on minecraft for instance. Space Engineers executed that idea but implementation was never meant to be for MMO.

This is why is not scale-able. But once you had balanced server it worked. Non of above destroyed economy. It only made game play more interesting and stimulating.

 

So we have LUA as part of initial implementation but we going to reprogram flying behavior. I consider it a waste. If that was planned from the start I am sure it would be easier ti implement few items to buy to change that flying behavior and save time on LUA integration, maybe the game itself would be even better optimized without such thing.

 

but that.. is my humble opinion as a programmer and player.

 

2) Even with fuel/maintenance: mine large amounts of whatever resource. Hide it, sit on it. Fuck up the market with that resource, price goes up, dump all your shit on the market. Where exactly is this balanced?

 
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Well, there is, how is calculated is another story, but using automation could exclude skill progression.

 

 

You didn't read or misunderstand me above.

 

Let's say

Iron ore is on the market for $100/tone

To dig it up by hand I need.. time. Let's say 1h.

Then I have option:

Using drone I need to be present in order for script to run this operation. (Maybe busy building something)

Same drone will spend 2h to give me same amount.

It will burn Fuel within 2h that in Planetary conditions will simply cost me $300.

Mining equipment may have durability or simply break so... I will need even more to maintain it.

 

So sure, this way I can turn tedious job to auto grind. And yeah, I can possibly mine more over the time if I can afford it. Because I am not performing a business activity here whatsoever. How is that profitable? Everyone can dump whatever and as much as he wish and you will not stop free market. If I'm stupid enough to dump this on the market I'm certainly not contributor to the global economy when amount of resource is limited on this planet. In fact I would make this resource more valuable over the time by digging more and dumping with my loss.

 

But for someone who like to go to work or have a family life (IF i can afford it automation could be an option for me) Because I could mine and build and manage at the same time.

 

Matter of opinion but,

 

consider this:

 

1. Same automated drone could be cheaper in space / asteroids. It would make it more profitable. Force people to fly into orbit, space, search expeditions, create transports, escorts, Stimulate market more, encourage pirates. Simply more interaction.

 

2. Variety of scripts would contribute to the market and LUA programmers to actually BE a profession. Having few flying scripts will be set after few first days of gameplay and nobody will ever consider it as a serious profession in game if this is the only purpose to have LUA.

 

3. If such tools are available for everyone market will balance itself no matter you grinding by hand or large volumes. In fact newbie way would remain the most profitable and preferable for starters no matter what.

 

4. If this is going to be a game to spend 8h under the ground per day to mine resource I'd rather get back to the office, same tedious s**t ;). I have no chance with those who have lot's of spare time. The audience is kind of limited to maniacs. Games are for fun after all.

 

We were there already many times, Technic on minecraft for instance. Space Engineers executed that idea but implementation was never meant to be for MMO.

This is why is not scale-able. But once you had balanced server it worked. Non of above destroyed economy. It only made game play more interesting and stimulating.

 

So we have LUA as part of initial implementation but we going to reprogram flying behavior. I consider it a waste. If that was planned from the start I am sure it would be easier ti implement few items to buy to change that flying behavior and save time on LUA integration, maybe the game itself would be even better optimized without such thing.

 

but that.. is my humble opinion as a programmer and player.

1) No there is no skill progression by using a certain skill. Read the blogs.

 

2) You do know that prices can be fucked up by players? And you do know that (in your example) those 100creds/ton and 300creds for fuel is only valid at a certain point?

 

3) If mining is too tedious for you, then just don't mine. Do something else. It's not that much cheaper if you mine yourself and build something with those resources or you just buy the resources. Mined resources by yourself aren't for free you know

 

4) so you only use lua in your ships then. Good to know when I pillage your base...

 

If this would be implemented, old players just dominate the market with their ore, not caring about fuel (because they manipulate the market for that) and newbros would just not be able to compete

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