Black market

[XKentX]

This is idea for the Black Market borrowed from a successful open-market player-driven game Albion Online and adopted to DU.

 

Black Market quick idea:

Can be located in some remote PVP isolated areas in a tiny safezone so you can trade in peace but have risk while getting there.

 

Allows people to sell elements there for quanta to bot orders (wait, read on before yelling!)

Elements, that are sold are entered into a "pool".

From time to time, those elements spawn in random locations around the map under current "voxels" so they are burried and will be found by miners/explorers.

 

The elements are actually player made as it's players that sell them.

This adds "PVE" and exploration reward without breaking the economy. Those elements can as well be used to create the "wrecks" that have been recently introduced.

 

Prices(VERY IMPORTANT):

Prices should be "dynamic", here is an example of a good algorithm:

1) Each item starts at 1 quanta.

2) Server periodically(every X hours) polls the purchased element pool. If some element is not there. It's price is increased by a factor of Y.

3) Once the items is sold by a player, the price goes down again and starts climbing up.

 

It should be allowed to put items "for sale" there by the players so the elements will be auto-purchased once the price hits it.

 

End result:

An interesting way to sell your products that can be very profitable and challenging PVP-wise (this is obvious hotspot) and it doesn't break the economy. All the elements there are made by players, they don't spawn out of thin air.

Some elements, that we see are in over-supply can "get lost" in the pool taking them out of the game.

 

As the new mechanics for "quanta sinking" are introduced this can be a very interesting way of "quanta injection" instead of braindead voxel bots.

 

[Penwith]

Would probably be better implemented through pirate bases (space cores) with player markets.

 

With the "player-driven" design philosophy, which featured largely in the early discussion, and then gets a serving of it now and again, any bots that buy/sell, beyond those items which NEED a bot seller (like the new schematics), fail to meet that standard.

 

Cash drains on the economy do exist, but there are few atm (claiming hexes, creating orgs).

 

The real problem with regard to cash and the need for more or larger draining of it is that it is far too easy to scan a hex, mine the lucrative ores or meganodes and move on. Those who become cash-rich in this manner are then more free to do the same on the rest of the moons and planets beyond Alioth, whereas the remaining players are scrambling over the leftovers.

 

Slowing down the "locust effect" needs to happen, not the draining of cash from players who are not already wealthy.