Money Sinks and the "Player driven economy"

[wuselfuzz]

Hi.

 

I'm a returning player from beta, and decided to emigrate to Jago as soon as possible in release, because it sounded like a fun idea, being a pioneer building the restaurant at the end of the universe.

 

And now, the money sinks become a serious issue: Weekly tile tax. 500k a week is not too bad, but the current mechanics to get the money is "collect ore, sell to NPC". Since other settlers are arriving, I already make the occasional money on selling T2 ores from asteroids and static M cores, but this is not regular income I could depend on.

 

I pondered if selling M engines would be another viable source of income, but those are available for a relatively low price from the market NPCs. Same for fuel. Meh.

 

I'm not running NPC missions, because again, this is pure grind, and I have no clue if Jago even offers NPC missions (didn't check before they were disabled).

 

Then, the quanta barrier on L and XL schematics also is quite steep. I don't even complain about the time-gate to develop those schematics, but the quanta cost on L element schematics is crippling.

 

Life on Jago is hard enough already, with Copper not being available locally, and Iron only available in surface rocks. This is not a complaint, though, this is the challenge I was looking for. But upon accepting this challenge, I wouldn't know tax-free life isn't even possible in the remotest areas of the known universe.

 

Imagine if Columbus discovered America and was hit with a huge property tax from day three. 😉

 

Suggestions:

 

- Make the first HQ tile tax-free, maybe limited to non-safe zone planets.

- Reduce or abolish T1 schematic prices

 

/edit: After reading the schematics bank post, maybe it would even better if schematics would be completely removed, and instead wear & tear is added to industry. Like after a given number of batches, the element starts acting up (starts producing slower) and eventually completely breaks down. This would be an actual element sink on the game, and would be quite balanced - for a megafactory producing 24/7, regular maintenance is in order, but for a small backyard factory that's only producing for a small demand, it would last much longer. Bonus points, if a broken element can be exchanged with a new one in-place, keeping configuration and links (i.e. consume inventory element to reset placed element to pristine state).

 

 

[Kezzle]

7 hours ago, wuselfuzz said:

/edit: After reading the schematics bank post, maybe it would even better if schematics would be completely removed, and instead wear & tear is added to industry. Like after a given number of batches, the element starts acting up (starts producing slower) and eventually completely breaks down. This would be an actual element sink on the game, and would be quite balanced - for a megafactory producing 24/7, regular maintenance is in order, but for a small backyard factory that's only producing for a small demand, it would last much longer. Bonus points, if a broken element can be exchanged with a new one in-place, keeping configuration and links (i.e. consume inventory element to reset placed element to pristine state).

 

I like this idea. It might even be worth requiring the maintenance to be in the form of Parts (the ones that would go to make up the Element in question) rather than a built Element...

 

[Maxim Kammerer]

11 hours ago, wuselfuzz said:

maybe it would even better if schematics would be completely removed, and instead wear & tear is added to industry. Like after a given number of batches, the element starts acting up (starts producing slower) and eventually completely breaks down.

 

Please don't put such ideas into their heads! Yes, it could work if implemented correctly. But this is NQ. They would reduce the "given number of batches" to a point where a factory needs to run at full capacity just to produce its own spare parts.

[Aaron Cain]

@Maxim Kammerer Amen to that

[Novean-61657]

On 10/10/2022 at 11:45 AM, wuselfuzz said:

And now, the money sinks become a serious issue: Weekly tile tax. 500k a week is not too bad, but the current mechanics to get the money is "collect ore, sell to NPC".

That is weird, currently my income from ore sales to NPCs is maybe 20% of my income, ~5% comes from the daily log in rewards and the rest comes from mission running...

I'm currently operating on Alioth (with a 3 day base on Thades for the Chromium), I've considered going to the outer planets, but the choices aren't great yet imho. I might go to the next batch of planets NQ releases or wait until they're all there... If income is an issue, maybe you've colonized too early?

 

I've currently got 16 tiles that are 'active', I've staggered aquisition in groups of three, so I'm not due one huge bill after a week. This is primarily T1 ore (with only one tile mining a little Limestone), and I'm using most of it for building more stuff. I get a little overproduction of Quartz, which I sell to NPCs (thus the maybe 20% income) and I buy the underproduction ore with like Coal (or Natron). I'm getting to a point where I overproduce a little in the en product department, I need to do some math and I'll probably be selling products on the market in a short while (the further decreasing sales to NPCs)...

 

Selling Nitron with max production skills is still profitable at 10q/L, the NPC orders are at 50q/L, those are NOT low NPC order prices. A Basic Atmo Engine M is 97.066q from an NPC order, the lowest PC sell order is 68.000q and at that price you're still making a super healthy profit.

 

What I'm reading in the OP is a ton of assumptions that you don't do your own research on and/or you're expectations are completely out of whack (sell prices being too low)... DU is hanging together from 'grind' missions, ore mining, ore picking up, automining, production chains, buying/selling, moving product from A to B, etc. That you don't like a certain kind of grind I totally 'get' though, but that doesn't suddenly make the rest of DU less grindy! I don't mind if the grind is fun, but many of the gameplay loops just aren't fun (or interesting) for repeated use (where is my fun NQ!?!? 😉 ). For me it's about the building up to something and the persistence in that, but we all know how NQ Advanced Screwed us over on that and left the door open to do that again (but that is for another rant).

 

My advise: Do some math, both on what things cost to make and what it's being sold for. Do some research on where to sell it and how to sell it.

 

Tips: You can make a tile an HQ tile, no taxes means no industry or automining, but a space station doesn't require taxes to do industry... Horizon has BPs for space elevators... Buy one, build one, deploy on your HQ tile, go to space, deploy Space Core and do all your production in there...

[GraXXoR]

deleted.

[wuselfuzz]

9 hours ago, Cergorach said:

What I'm reading in the OP is a ton of assumptions that you don't do your own research on and/or you're expectations are completely out of whack (sell prices being too low)... DU is hanging together from 'grind' missions, ore mining, ore picking up, automining, production chains, buying/selling, moving product from A to B, etc. That you don't like a certain kind of grind I totally 'get' though, but that doesn't suddenly make the rest of DU less grindy! I don't mind if the grind is fun, but many of the gameplay loops just aren't fun (or interesting) for repeated use (where is my fun NQ!?!? 😉 ). For me it's about the building up to something and the persistence in that, but we all know how NQ Advanced Screwed us over on that and left the door open to do that again (but that is for another rant).

 

My advise: Do some math, both on what things cost to make and what it's being sold for. Do some research on where to sell it and how to sell it.

 

 

Dude, OP clearly wrote that they emigrated to Jago, and the market there is not as busy as Alioth's yet. What might work on Alioth doesn't work here yet.

 

However, I'd like a clarification of HQ tiles. In ingame chat, someone just claimed, that an inactive tile just disables autominers, but not industry. That's a big difference, not having to pay 500k a week.

 

Surprisingly, I actually sold some stuff out here, M cores and TUs sold with a 50% markup compared to Alioth prices. yay.

[Msoul]

3 minutes ago, wuselfuzz said:

However, I'd like a clarification of HQ tiles. In ingame chat, someone just claimed, that an inactive tile just disables autominers, but not industry.

I can confirm that industry units will currently operate on inactive tiles. This change was implemented in Panacea update 0.28.0 and remains in effect.

Also since this seems to be a common question right now, note that inactive tiles do not count towards a mining unit's adjacency bonus. It must be an active tile owned by the same player or organization that owns the adjacent tile running said mining unit.

[wuselfuzz]

1 minute ago, Msoul said:

I can confirm that industry units will currently operate on inactive tiles. This change was implemented in Panacea update 0.28.0 and remains in effect.

Also since this seems to be a common question right now, note that inactive tiles do not count towards a mining unit's adjacency bonus. It must be an active tile owned by the same player or organization that owns the adjacent tile running said mining unit.

 

Thank you. I'm already in the asteroid mining business, so I don't really care about the calibration game.

[Aaron Cain]

10 hours ago, Cergorach said:

That is weird, currently my income from ore sales to NPCs is maybe 20% of my income, ~5% comes from the daily log in rewards and the rest comes from mission running...

 

No problem with you doing this but i do have an issue with the concept in DU

 

Here we have a sandbox game that should not have the prime income from NPC missions for most players. How did the development team ever think this would help get a player driven emergent universe where we build civilization together as most people do their best to gain income from npc missions.

If anything should be gained it should have been items that you get semi random so you need to chose whether to keep or sell them at a market.

 

[Owl_Superb]

12 hours ago, Cergorach said:

Tips: You can make a tile an HQ tile, no taxes means no industry or automining, but a space station doesn't require taxes to do industry... Horizon has BPs for space elevators... Buy one, build one, deploy on your HQ tile, go to space, deploy Space Core and do all your production in there...

@Cergorachyour replies are a beacon of sense, calculation and raw mental power that keeps this dim place somewhat enlightened. Thank you for being the voice of reason on these boards.

[Distinct Mint]

1 hour ago, Owl_Superb said:

@Cergorachyour replies are a beacon of sense, calculation and raw mental power that keeps this dim place somewhat enlightened. Thank you for being the voice of reason on these boards.

 

Except that in the quote you're replying to "no taxes means no industry or automining" is incorrect. No taxes only means no automining. Industry is perfectly fine and works on inactive tiles. "Sense" is not always right 🙂

[ColonkinYT]

Selling ship elements looks like a serious mistake. From an industrial point of view.
And if you look at the developer, then this is one of the ways to withdraw money from circulation. Another thing is that not 10kk elements should be on the market. A few hundred would suffice.

They will remain in markets where there are few people (and in the absence of offers, they will be a good solution for the downtrodden). In other cases, players will quickly fill the niches.
I am more and more convinced that many things are done hastily. Without considering the consequences. What causes concern in terms of game development planning...

 

P.s. The absence of any elements and fuels in the markets would open up a niche of "escape" for many who love RP.

[Aaron Cain]

To be honest, with the npc marked and the ship marked next door with good working NQ buyable ships what is the use of emergent gameplay? no-one will buy my designed ship as the costs and effort i invested will never outweigh the cheap ships NQ offers. 

 

In short, once we were told no npc in DU but at the momens the whole game is dominated by them, market, missions, shipselling, all elements of the game that players should fill but were needed to mask that it just does not work if you need to rely on players in the setup DU has chosen.  This also includes the killing of the community page, that page was used to sell stuff, show stuff, promote news and organizations, frankly the killing of that page did alot of damage to the community and to the active backbone of DU but that has been ignored since the moment they killed it.

[ColonkinYT]

27 minutes ago, Aaron Cain said:

To be honest, with the npc marked and the ship marked next door with good working NQ buyable ships what is the use of emergent gameplay? no-one will buy my designed ship as the costs and effort i invested will never outweigh the cheap ships NQ offers. 

 

In short, once we were told no npc in DU but at the momens the whole game is dominated by them, market, missions, shipselling, all elements of the game that players should fill but were needed to mask that it just does not work if you need to rely on players in the setup DU has chosen.  This also includes the killing of the community page, that page was used to sell stuff, show stuff, promote news and organizations, frankly the killing of that page did alot of damage to the community and to the active backbone of DU but that has been ignored since the moment they killed it.

Seeing so many of yours in the UEF store makes my eyes bleed.
Especially when I bought a ship for 15 kk with antigrav on a demo server, I did not find a script for controlling this very antigrav. OK. This doesn't scare me... But this is the only cargo ship on the market with an L container for space. And not to give control to AGG? For newbies? Seriously?
This could go on for a very, very long time...

[Aaron Cain]

They are not mine   but i do understand you!! Player bought ships you should expect to contain the full scripting to make it actually work.

[ColonkinYT]

1 hour ago, Aaron Cain said:

They are not mine   

 Sorry! Google translate 😂

[Aaron Cain]

No problem, most scripting i need a good friend does but its so good i dont even understand how it works

Feel free to join Tranquility and maybe i can help you gain momentum

[ColonkinYT]

5 minutes ago, Aaron Cain said:

No problem, most scripting i need a good friend does but its so good i dont even understand how it works

Feel free to join Tranquility and maybe i can help you gain momentum

Thanks!

Oh no! I will not return to the wormhole! My paranoia will not survive the second attack))).

 

But.... Never say never! 😉 

[Zeddrick]

18 hours ago, wuselfuzz said:

 

Dude, OP clearly wrote that they emigrated to Jago, and the market there is not as busy as Alioth's yet. What might work on Alioth doesn't work here yet.

 

However, I'd like a clarification of HQ tiles. In ingame chat, someone just claimed, that an inactive tile just disables autominers, but not industry. That's a big difference, not having to pay 500k a week.

 

Surprisingly, I actually sold some stuff out here, M cores and TUs sold with a 50% markup compared to Alioth prices. yay.

I have an inactive HQ tile which I'm using for industry.  Although autominers are disabled you can also still calibrate them collect the ore that spawns when the tile is inactive.