TRADE MISSIONS - low-effort developement to provide a new way to generate quanta

[fridaywitchx]

we should be able to buy bot generated goods from the market that we could sell on different planets for a profit. These goods wouldn't have any other purpose. Similarly like in Voyage Century online if you guys remember.

 

for example we would roll out 9-10 different difficulty levels of goods 1 type on each planet and the goods would sell differently on planets depending on the distance. 

 

there could be a formula for the price generation depending on the distance, skill level (new talents), and a static value if the goods are hauled outside of a safe zone.

 

so If i buy a 50t weight good on Alooth for 50k q, I go to sell it on Jago 1000k (that's a 6 hour trip with landing), your profit would be around 900k. If you use warp cells there and back, the profit would be around 300k. Although the numbers could be worked out.

 

the same would apply on the higher difficulty goods, but the rewards would need exponentially decrease (the reason why it needs to decrease is because it needs to be worth it for the new player as well), so if someone takes a 25kt difficulty product to Jago, they would need to buy the good that fits into his/her cargohold for 25mil, and the sell price could be around 100mil. (warp cells / fuel would cost around 80mil on the current 20k / piece). so the profit could be around 20mil. This may sound like a lot if you have never tried lifting 25kts off Alioth or land with it. It's difficult and especially very risky in today's Dual Universe where you can't repair your ship that easily. Not to mention building a warp cell factory to support this would cost around 4-5b quanta.

 

There would be a limitation that you can only buy and store 1 good at the same time. There must be a validation how far you are from your good to prevent abuse. We don't want ppl buying up stuff taking them up to space, and deliver all of them in one go. 1 user = 1 good. This way someone with a larger ship can not buy up 50x 50t goods that he/she could sell on a higher margin.

 

these are the different products (difficulty levels) I would make available. This is just one you would as many as planets we have. In the below picture we have 3x level 1 (food is one of them)

 

Food | 50t

Medical Supplies |  100t

Mining Equipment | 200t

Warp Cells |  400t

Ore |  800t

Electronics | 1600t

Spare Parts |  3200t

Spare Engines | 6400t

Reactor | 12800t

Terraformer Unit | 25000t

 

obvoisuly the prices would need to be carefully thought through, calibrated, and monitored.

I would probably link the goods prices with the minimum warp cell price on the market with a static number to maximize the value (so it won't be abused)

 

This would also boost pvp as there would be more traffic. Obviously the looted goods could be sold.

 

The above is just on the high level. It needs to be sanity checked and tested on a piece of paper

 

the below is a simple representation on how it would work with only 3 planets with 1 difficulty level

 

 

 

[Penwith]

I think for this type of thing, it would be better for an industrial production based on "needs" of a planetary NPC population (that we don't see but are assumed to be present somewhere).  So, Alioth and Sanctuary would have a set demand, that would fluctuate based on how well previous demand has been met, plus a random variable.

 

These would be market goods, and could either be a single item, or be classified as "food, "dry goods," "hardware," etc.

 

This would give something to people to make in order to sell for a modest profit, but would be limited in order to reduce its potential to be exploited.  As the game progresses, other planets and moons could have an NPC base placed on it, that would also need these types of goods, again for a steady source of income. I imagine off-planet locations would make for profitable traderuns for dedicated haulers.

 

As the market stabilizes, this particular crutch could be progressively withdrawn as new content is added; content which provides income opportunities.

 

At the same time, I'd rather see bot purchases of ores go away, entirely, as the market goods would serve the same purpose, but not directly determine the price of t1 ores (player's should be doing that).

 

A point of clarification: These market goods would be single items, not a container of anything, just "Hardware" at 1L each and a mass (to be determined). The number of these should be kept fairly low, perhaps up to five, with higher tiers of ores producing more in a batch.

 

I suggest there's no set volumes for anything beyond 1L worth per item, as this allows players of all kinds and carrying capacities to participate, with less hassle. 

 

This suggestion is made as a qualifier to yours, as I think bots producing anything is bad (beyond schematics) as is the bots directly effecting the prices of goods on what is supposed to be a player-driven market. Sure, the same materials go into my suggested market goods as other player-made items, but that's an indirect effect.

 

 

[fridaywitchx]

16 minutes ago, Penwith said:

I think for this type of thing, it would be better for an industrial production based on "needs" of a planetary NPC population (that we don't see but are assumed to be present somewhere).  So, Alioth and Sanctuary would have a set demand, that would fluctuate based on how well previous demand has been met, plus a random variable.

 

These would be market goods, and could either be a single item, or be classified as "food, "dry goods," "hardware," etc.

 

This would give something to people to make in order to sell for a modest profit, but would be limited in order to reduce its potential to be exploited.  As the game progresses, other planets and moons could have an NPC base placed on it, that would also need these types of goods, again for a steady source of income. I imagine off-planet locations would make for profitable traderuns for dedicated haulers.

 

As the market stabilizes, this particular crutch could be progressively withdrawn as new content is added; content which provides income opportunities.

 

At the same time, I'd rather see bot purchases of ores go away, entirely, as the market goods would serve the same purpose, but not directly determine the price of t1 ores (player's should be doing that).

 

A point of clarification: These market goods would be single items, not a container of anything, just "Hardware" at 1L each and a mass (to be determined). The number of these should be kept fairly low, perhaps up to five, with higher tiers of ores producing more in a batch.

 

I suggest there's no set volumes for anything beyond 1L worth per item, as this allows players of all kinds and carrying capacities to participate, with less hassle. 

 

This suggestion is made as a qualifier to yours, as I think bots producing anything is bad (beyond schematics) as is the bots directly effecting the prices of goods on what is supposed to be a player-driven market. Sure, the same materials go into my suggested market goods as other player-made items, but that's an indirect effect.

 

 

I added a simple picture to represent what I mean in a 3 planet config with only one difficuly level. In reality I would introduce 10 products / planet (to represent different difficuly levels)

Difficuly levels I mean for instace different weights/volume. So for example someone risking a 1billion ship shipping 20kts to Jago would be rewarded accordingly.

[Penwith]

You do need to account for the cost to program this in. What takes less resources, less cycles, and less man-hours is the most likely route, because of budgets.

 

One does not need a 1billion ship to ship goods anywhere, players choose to do so. Thus, the reward method is much too high in your calculation.

 

Someone delivering 10,000l of Item X will stand to make more profit than someone delivering 1,000L, the more efficient the ship, the more % in profit, but the absolute numbers will, of course, fall on the side of the one delivering more at once.

 

Ignore the ship being used by the player to make a delivery in your calculations (and argument) of risk/reward. The real consideration would be is the demand being met on time? If someone orders 1000 of something, they don't care if it goes by plane, boat, truck, or a person walking it to the door, as long as it arrives on time and is unlikely to be delayed in shipment. Businesses care about such things due to efficiencies in cost to ship vs weight of goods shipped, but that would be for the player doing the deliveries in-game to take into account, not the game itself.

 

Where this applies in your example and my qualifier, is that we are both talking about a mechanic that does not follow the design philosophy of the game, and so would very likely be used as a temporary crutch until the game is ready for full release, and perhaps a short time after. Therefore, any such addition have to be viewed in that light.

 

Why I think that actual items that are produced through the assemblers, instead of bots, is that 1) all player types, except perhaps for builders, are involved, and 2) these items may potentially serve other uses down the road, as the game grows and expands, with more content.

 

If players are creating these goods, then people will need to mine, others will need to use industry, others will need to haul them, and pvpers/pirates will sell them if looted from their victims. While any one player can choose to do all of these, many do not like to mine at all. Others will find the industrial side either too costly or time-consuming, etc. Thus a mechanism that hits all the buttons is better than one that ignores two out of the four archtypes I mentioned above. It a bot sells the item, then there's no need to mine for the goods or for an industrial player to produce them.

 

Also, this can be dove-tailed into the upcoming mission system, where contracts for these market goods could be issued to and fulfilled by players, as a mission. They could even be set up to where a player with a smaller cargo ship can meet the contract in multiple trips and not just one.

 

I could continued with further explanation, but will leave it here. I think your idea has potential, just not in the way you set it up. Which is why I added my qualifier.

 

 

 

[fridaywitchx]

Just now, Penwith said:

You do need to account for the cost to program this in. What takes less resources, less cycles, and less man-hours is the most likely route, because of budgets.

 

One does not need a 1billion ship to ship goods anywhere, players choose to do so. Thus, the reward method is much too high in your calculation.

 

Someone delivering 10,000l of Item X will stand to make more profit than someone delivering 1,000L, the more efficient the ship, the more % in profit, but the absolute numbers will, of course, fall on the side of the one delivering more at once.

 

Ignore the ship being used by the player to make a delivery in your calculations (and argument) of risk/reward. The real consideration would be is the demand being met on time? If someone orders 1000 of something, they don't care if it goes by plane, boat, truck, or a person walking it to the door, as long as it arrives on time and is unlikely to be delayed in shipment. Businesses care about such things due to efficiencies in cost to ship vs weight of goods shipped, but that would be for the player doing the deliveries in-game to take into account, not the game itself.

 

Where this applies in your example and my qualifier, is that we are both talking about a mechanic that does not follow the design philosophy of the game, and so would very likely be used as a temporary crutch until the game is ready for full release, and perhaps a short time after. Therefore, any such addition have to be viewed in that light.

 

Why I think that actual items that are produced through the assemblers, instead of bots, is that 1) all player types, except perhaps for builders, are involved, and 2) these items may potentially serve other uses down the road, as the game grows and expands, with more content.

 

If players are creating these goods, then people will need to mine, others will need to use industry, others will need to haul them, and pvpers/pirates will sell them if looted from their victims. While any one player can choose to do all of these, many do not like to mine at all. Others will find the industrial side either too costly or time-consuming, etc. Thus a mechanism that hits all the buttons is better than one that ignores two out of the four archtypes I mentioned above. It a bot sells the item, then there's no need to mine for the goods or for an industrial player to produce them.

 

Also, this can be dove-tailed into the upcoming mission system, where contracts for these market goods could be issued to and fulfilled by players, as a mission. They could even be set up to where a player with a smaller cargo ship can meet the contract in multiple trips and not just one.

 

I could continued with further explanation, but will leave it here. I think your idea has potential, just not in the way you set it up. Which is why I added my qualifier.

 

 

 

"Thus, the reward method is much too high in your calculation."

 

My figures are just examples. Of course it needs to be calibrated. In my opinion the reward should be equal to if you spent the same time mining and slighly exponentially more if you haul higher tier stuff.

 

"Someone delivering 10,000l of Item X will stand to make more profit than someone delivering 1,000L, the more efficient the ship, the more % in profit, but the absolute numbers will, of course, fall on the side of the one delivering more at once."

 

Yes, if someone can lift off 25kts from Alioth, that someone deserves a higher reward versus someone who just have a basic ship.

 

"Why I think that actual items that are produced through the assemblers, instead of bots, is that 1) all player types, except perhaps for builders, are involved, and 2) these items may potentially serve other uses down the road, as the game grows and expands, with more content. If players are creating these goods, then people will need to mine, others will need to use industry, others will need to haul them, and pvpers/pirates will sell them if looted from their victims. While any one player can choose to do all of these, many do not like to mine at all. Others will find the industrial side either too costly or time-consuming, etc. Thus a mechanism that hits all the buttons is better than one that ignores two out of the four archtypes I mentioned above. It a bot sells the item, then there's no need to mine for the goods or for an industrial player to produce them.

 

won't work with player made stuff as ppl would just set up industries next to markets and sell them there. Then you wouldn't need to haul anywhere. Be mindful this stuff I explained above was developed, tested and used in another game in the past.

[Penwith]

1 hour ago, laicheeeee said:

So for example someone risking a 1billion ship shipping 20kts to Jago would be rewarded accordingly.

This is what I was referring to. The value of their ship should not even be considered in the discussion.

 

35 minutes ago, laicheeeee said:

Yes, if someone can lift off 25kts from Alioth, that someone deserves a higher reward versus someone who just have a basic ship.

The higher reward should come from, and only from, the fact that they delivered and sold more of the same good than someone who delivered and sold less.

 

35 minutes ago, laicheeeee said:

won't work with player made stuff as ppl would just set up industries next to markets and sell them there. Then you wouldn't need to haul anywhere. Be mindful this stuff I explained above was developed, tested and used in another game in the past.

Doesn't matter. The time investment, apart from that of shipping, would still remain. And honestly, the 5-10 minutes of shipping to a market to sell the goods isn't going to break the game. I imagine that, at the very least, players with small industry would love a chance to sell goods to the market.

 

That your recommendation was used elsewhere doesn't matter; apples and oranges. Many of the mechanisms that work in EVE, for example, would not work well here at all. If anything, the closest comparison would have to be Starbase, but their current economy suffers from near-hyper inflation (and a few other things), so even that is problematic.

 

Also, in my qualifier, the sale price of the market goods would follow the formula used to set the current buy price of ores. They can scale up, from that baseline, to be sure, but tagging it to a player-made item (warp cells in your example) is going to cause problems as players, especially larger orgs, will certainly manipulate the market in order to cause the price to change for their benefit. While they can do that now, to a certain extent, they cannot directly cause the bot purchase price of ore to change.

 

Lastly, my qualifier would need to use a steady trickle of demand, probably by the hour, instead of a daily dump that is quickly fulfilled by the most industrial. This would mean that demand would exist throughout the whole day, with player actions determining whether or not it gets filled. If not, the buy price increases slightly, otherwise it remains unchanged. Again, this could easily be tied into the mission system, with an increase in reward for the more distant planets based on how that system allocates rewards.

[fridaywitchx]

8 minutes ago, Penwith said:

This is what I was referring to. The value of their ship should not even be considered in the discussion.

 

The higher reward should come from, and only from, the fact that they delivered and sold more of the same good than someone who delivered and sold less.

 

Doesn't matter. The time investment, apart from that of shipping, would still remain. And honestly, the 5-10 minutes of shipping to a market to sell the goods isn't going to break the game. I imagine that, at the very least, players with small industry would love a chance to sell goods to the market.

 

That your recommendation was used elsewhere doesn't matter; apples and oranges. Many of the mechanisms that work in EVE, for example, would not work well here at all. If anything, the closest comparison would have to be Starbase, but their current economy suffers from near-hyper inflation (and a few other things), so even that is problematic.

 

Also, in my qualifier, the sale price of the market goods would follow the formula used to set the current buy price of ores. They can scale up, from that baseline, to be sure, but tagging it to a player-made item (warp cells in your example) is going to cause problems as players, especially larger orgs, will certainly manipulate the market in order to cause the price to change for their benefit. While they can do that now, to a certain extent, they cannot directly cause the bot purchase price of ore to change.

 

Lastly, my qualifier would need to use a steady trickle of demand, probably by the hour, instead of a daily dump that is quickly fulfilled by the most industrial. This would mean that demand would exist throughout the whole day, with player actions determining whether or not it gets filled. If not, the buy price increases slightly, otherwise it remains unchanged. Again, this could easily be tied into the mission system, with an increase in reward for the more distant planets based on how that system allocates rewards.

mate, you are talking about a different aspect of the game. If you want to sell player crafted stuff to bots, that's another idea topic and has nothing to do with what I am proposing here. 

[Penwith]

And in my explanation, I gave reasons why I believe your suggestion would need to be changed to someone more in line with what I stated.

 

In either case, we both know NQ won't be doing it.

 

 

[fridaywitchx]

22 minutes ago, Penwith said:

And in my explanation, I gave reasons why I believe your suggestion would need to be changed to someone more in line with what I stated.

 

In either case, we both know NQ won't be doing it.

 

 

If they don't come up with other options to make money, I am gone. I won't be mining 4hours a day for sure. 4hours a week is more than enough for me  but that won't get me anywhere in today's dual universe

[Penwith]

16 minutes ago, laicheeeee said:

If they don't come up with other options to make money, I am gone. I won't be mining 4hours a day for sure. 4hours a week is more than enough for me  but that won't get me anywhere in today's dual universe

I hear ya. I am sure money making opportunities will come, but it may not be in time for many. Were this this situation at or after full-release, then it would be a disaster. As it is, being that there's very likely 18-24 months (at minimum) of further development before release, there's time.

[Warlander]

This system will largely be dead on arrival. Sure people will try a couple missions but as soon as they realize that 50% of the missions are just large orgs baiting people into particular lanes heading to planets or that 25% of other missions will be to jump people at particular points with the last remain 25% of missions just not being worth the time/money/effort/risk for the reward nobody except large orgs running inter-org jobs will actually use this system.

[fridaywitchx]

41 minutes ago, Warlander said:

This system will largely be dead on arrival. Sure people will try a couple missions but as soon as they realize that 50% of the missions are just large orgs baiting people into particular lanes heading to planets or that 25% of other missions will be to jump people at particular points with the last remain 25% of missions just not being worth the time/money/effort/risk for the reward nobody except large orgs running inter-org jobs will actually use this system.

You haven't read the proposal properly. The dude said obvoisuly the prices would need to be carefully thought through, calibrated, and monitored.

for me this means that the examples I lined up there are just ballpark figures. although moving 50ts on a 900k profit to JAgo doesn't sound that bad imho. All I can say is dont get lost in the details