bots are nearly depleted with no sign of refresh until next year

[Snow]

i believe most people are still trying to get established and hardly anyone has probably gotten to into aphilia missions as of yet this will further crash the market and destroy the eco as  the heavy money sinks get rid of all the quanta 1 set of tier 1 ore bots I dont believe is near enough to kickstart

[Wyndle]

Instead of selling to a bot, post it for sale at the bot price at your nearest market.  You may not get your money as fast as a bot sale, but all of the factories being constructed are hungry non-stop meaning there's enough demand that your ore is highly likely to sell at that price.  If you want to sell faster you could split the difference between bot price and the buy orders at Market 6 on Alioth.  Since you are only delivering it to your nearest market instead of Market 6, the amount of potential savings in fuel should offset your loss compared to the bot orders.

[Aaron Cain]

great, the sandbox can only start to function when all bots and npc missions are gone.

Although not a popular believe.

[Aaron Cain]

The whole created moneysink is utterly absurt and these so called schematics are just the relics of overly abundant server load builds that needed to be destroyed and thus a feature in DU.

byebye megafactories or at this moment, factories of every size, Helloo schematics.

 

 

[kulkija]

If there is enough quanta in economy, then #bots_must_go

 

9 minutes ago, Aaron Cain said:

great, the sandbox can only start to function when all bots and npc missions are gone.

Yes all NPCs must go, including NPC markets.

Player markets and market-units when?

 

Quote

In Dual Universe, creating a market will require nothing more than setting up a Market Unit, a particular Element that you can craft and install in any construct of yours. The Market Unit requires an energy supply and a container to store the traded goods. It can be as small as a front door market in your little farm, where travelers can buy your local production, to an orbital station sized market where interstellar mega ships are traded.

 

[Novean-61657]

@kulkija There are player markets, there were already there in Beta, they just don't run the same way as the the 'Markets'. The Market Unit is called a Dispenser. Gotchar left the game, but there are other big player markets like Koscos, but that one is temporarily closed because they couldn't keep up with demand...

 

That linked dev blog post is not the original, that's no longer on the site, but can be found via archive.org:

http://devblog.dualthegame.com/2014/12/04/from-barter-to-market-economy/

 

And if you look at the author, that is JC and that person is no longer working for NQ anymore, for a while now...

 

Now, a 'realistic' economy it was never going to be, never in a 1,000 years would there be enough players to make that happen. Even EVE, far bigger, does not have a 'realistic' economy, it never had. It does have an economy, which an economist can analyze, but it's not 'realistic' due to how the game (mechanics) work.

 

The current problem with DU is multifaceted:

1.) This is the THIRD incarnation of the same game (Alpha, Beta, Release). People expect to pick up where they left off during the previous era, but many things have changed. Old players have a huge advantage over the new players, not due to TPs, BPOs, etc. But due to knowledge. Sure things have changed, but I (and others) have a pretty good idea how things work, the details might be a little different. But still people expect a mature economy we had at the 'end' of Beta, while the situation is more like the start of Beta...

 

2.) 'Release' is not yet ready to be a final 1.0 release, but NQ got pushed into a corner and had no other option then to release in this state. Thus we're stuck with the NPC buy order refresh bug. Not that big a deal compared to other issues since launch...

 

3.) Many of the experienced players that still play are not doing that with as much dedication as with their first 'age' (Alpha or Beta). I started with Beta release and I'm not spending as much time/work on DU as I did during the first few months of Beta, I'm seeing/hearing the same from many other 'old' players. And still after a month I was probably farther then I was in Beta after a couple of months, purely due to knowing what I know. But I'm not expanding as fast as I could, because I've done this many times already during Beta and now again. I need to rebuild my factory for the third time since Release. Because it needs to scale differently (again), that's already almost 500 industry units and over 150 containers, when I'm done that's going to the thousands of industry units and containers, been there, done that! It now feels more like a chore and I don't want to do that rebuild in a weekend or even a week! The fun part (for me) is designing the factory line, the tedious part is putting it all down, linking everything manually, renaming stuff, putting in all the schematics and then maintaining the darned thing! This results in delayed growth and in turn in less demand on resources, specifically ore.

 

4.) The market/players/economy isn't ready for enormous operations that flood the market... Yet... I mine 60-70% of the ore I use myself, I buy the rest.  Previously that was a few hundred thousand ore every other day or so. After this weekend I finally was able to put in an order for a million T1 ore. I saw great sales this weekend, far more then the weekend before that, everyone is slowly scaling up everything across the board. That just doesn't mean more stuff to sell, but also more stuff to buy. My mining operation is maybe at half of what it could be and maybe 25% effective, but the market (or I) is just not ready for almost 9 million T1 ore per week from a single player (four accounts). But it will be! That almost 9 million is the max I can automine and harvest with four accounts, it doesn't scale beyond that. So if you specialize early (heavily in one specific activity) DU and the playerbase isn't ready for you yet. That is why there is more supply then demand at the moment and why the buy prices are slightly below the NPC 25q/l.

 

As production facilities become more mature and there's more quanta in the economy (mission running), the T1 ore hunger will become bigger. With a couple of side notes: This assumes a steady influx of new players and a healthy demand for Elements. If we come to a point that most people have everything they want/need and very few things need replacing, demand for T1 ore will drop fast. I personally didn't reach that level in the 1.5 years I was active during beta though and Element destruction has been 'improved' since then, so I expect that the average casual player won't see that for years if ever!

 

5.) NQ is time gating everything, they want us to slow the F down! We see that in their planning, in their implementations, etc. That could be a resource issue or a design issue, I suspect both. A not so clear, but very slow down method is the schematics system. People freak out over 500k quanta per tile per week. But schematic production can cost as much 2+ million per day per account, 14+ million per week per account of 56+m per week for four accounts. This slowed me down a LOT the first 5 weeks, I see that happening with others as well. The introduction of the schematic talents will probably make it worse. Sure, I expect discounts, more production lines, fast research, etc. But overall I expect it will become an even bigger quanta sink, while simultaneously sucking up millions of talent points.

 

My personal conclusion: Many folks want too much, to fast (including myself). I'm seeing exponential growth, but there's still a time axis on that! I'm also thinking that people see other people's stuff and expect to achieve that as well, tomorrow and forget the amount of work and knowledge went into that player ship. And you can't do everything and expect to be the best at everything.

[kulkija]

2 hours ago, Cergorach said:

here are player markets, there were already there in Beta, they just don't run the same way as the the 'Markets'. The Market Unit is called a Dispenser. Gotchar left the game, but there are other big player markets like Koscos, but that one is temporarily closed because they couldn't keep up with demand

Dispensers are just placeholders and workarounds. I know all those mega markets. I was there from Pre alpha. It was even said in one dev vlog that market-units were delayed post release.

[GraXXoR]

13 hours ago, kulkija said:

If there is enough quanta in economy, then #bots_must_go

 

Yes all NPCs must go, including NPC markets.

Player markets and market-units when?

 

Quote

In Dual Universe, creating a market will require nothing more than setting up a Market Unit, a particular Element that you can craft and install in any construct of yours. The Market Unit requires an energy supply and a container to store the traded goods. It can be as small as a front door market in your little farm, where travelers can buy your local production, to an orbital station sized market where interstellar mega ships are traded.

 

 

I think the DU staff must have been talking about a different game, back then, because it's sure nothing like what we have got today.

 

 

My favourite line is this absolute gem: "Very few games however take on the challenge of providing a very realistic, dynamic economy..."

Classic.

[ColonkinYT]

Maybe I'm not going to say a popular thing, but the vision of JC's game was much nicer to me.
Regarding the economy controlled by the player. I have only one question.
WHO WILL BE THE MONEY EMISSION CENTER?
And as a result, after that, a lot of other questions:
If it's not Aphelia, then who is it?
And if Aphelia, then how to distribute money between players without bots and according to what principle?
And the most important thing. Without the NPC, most people will simply have nothing to do here ...

As for the players' markets, the dispenser is not even a substitute. This is the crutch of the crutch.
But we must admit that it would be a mistake to give players such a tool as the admin market. There are still too many unresolved issues here.
And the main one is the place of storage (containers). With the current limit of 10 links per 1 hub, the maximum that you can do is about 7.5 million liters. For the market, this is very small. If given as is, many will simply use the markets as bottomless free storage.

[Aaron Cain]

5 hours ago, ColonkinYT said:

And the most important thing. Without the NPC, most people will simply have nothing to do here ...

 

 

 

Is that not the definition of failure? if this is correct, best to close shop and move on!

[ColonkinYT]

10 minutes ago, Aaron Cain said:

 

 

Is that not the definition of failure? if this is correct, best to close shop and move on!

It's definitely a failure. From the player's point of view.
However, we do not know what tasks were set by the management for game designers. It is possible that just the same, all tasks were completed successfully. )))
Grinding for the money should definitely be more fun.

[Aaron Cain]

agree on that, if the idea was to sent out free quanta the missions and bots should stop and t should be added to the daily cash. that way the bots do not hinder playes on the market or who actually want to make missions.

[ColonkinYT]

23 minutes ago, Aaron Cain said:

agree on that, if the idea was to sent out free quanta the missions and bots should stop and t should be added to the daily cash. that way the bots do not hinder playes on the market or who actually want to make missions.

I'm honestly against the distribution of free quanta.
This does not reflect the actual contribution of a particular character to the economy of the universe.
Especially since it's not my job to come up with game mechanics for free))). They still don't read us.
But. An economy with an NPC at least in the form of Aphelia looks much more viable. In addition to issuing quanta in proportion to the contribution to the economy, people could be occupied with useful things.
Don't just buy resources. And to buy resources for the construction of stations. For example. First there are markets on Haven. The rest is just platforms.
And the goals of the community are to collect resources for money.
We collected resources - another market appeared. Etc. This would give insight into the purchase of ores and materials. By the way, it would be possible to buy products in the same way. Not just like that, but for something.
There is a lot of room for creativity here. But these are only dreams and will not come true.
The same with the transportation of resources to the planets and into space.
Under this, it would be possible to organize the clearing of space from rabid xenos (and the guys on the initial ships would have someone to shoot at).
But who cares...

[Novean-61657]

Imho it would be simple. 1 T1 ore is worth 1 token. You give our Great Beneficial AI a liter of T1 ore, she gives you a token. She stores the ore and anyone can buy it back at 1 token per liter T1 ore. No free tokens, no missions for tokens or ore from that bank pool. No taxes needed for tiles, no taxes needed for schematics, no taxes needed for market transactions.

 

You want missions? Sure, the either players run their own or the AI pays you in schematics.

 

Markets? Player run markets. They need to build them, if they want to charge for their use, give them options to charge for it.

[Zeddrick]

2 hours ago, Cergorach said:

 

You want missions? Sure, the either players run their own or the AI pays you in schematics.

This is a great idea!  With part payment in cash but most of it in schematics this would make mission runningna balanced part of the economy. 

 

It would need to be implemented so that schematics are a lot harder to come by without running missions, so that mission running is needed.  If too many people run missions the rewards would be very low but too few missions being run would inflate the rewards.  The problem of mass mission running would solve itself.

[ColonkinYT]

13 hours ago, Cergorach said:

Imho it would be simple. 1 T1 ore is worth 1 token. You give our Great Beneficial AI a liter of T1 ore, she gives you a token. She stores the ore and anyone can buy it back at 1 token per liter T1 ore. No free tokens, no missions for tokens or ore from that bank pool. No taxes needed for tiles, no taxes needed for schematics, no taxes needed for market transactions.

 

You want missions? Sure, the either players run their own or the AI pays you in schematics.

 

Markets? Player run markets. They need to build them, if they want to charge for their use, give them options to charge for it.

No need to invent new money. ))) Your tokens are the same quantum. Especially for ore.
As for the schematics, it can be developed further. Estimate each mission in your own number of tokens and exchange for tokens in the Schemshop. Or a random mechanic. I did the mission - I got random schematics (depending on the complexity). You need - you use. Not needed - sell. But only unique schemas can be distributed this way.
But for the ore, yes. Exchange tickets for schematics of common products or materials.
Alternatively, it is through these missions (the most difficult ones) that you can distribute ultra rare schemes. That would be a challenge. )))
In the end, the same schemes can be made "Common", "Rare", "Exotic".
"Normal" - you craft in a nanopack.
"Rare" - only in missions of any difficulty level. Let's say the probability is 20%. The bonus is either the speed of production, or productivity and efficiency. Let's say savings in input materials of 5 or 10%.
"Exotic" - let's say 5% chance in 5 star missions. Let's say the production of the declared product in 50% of the amount of materials (or 2 products per run instead of one).
The numbers are just for illustration purposes.
Even the current system can be made interesting and meaningful.

[Novean-61657]

I dislike the idea to force players to do missions to get rare or exotic schematics for particular types of elements. But you could do variants of the schematics/elements. Think 'rare' schematics that require a bit less resources to produce or 'exotic' named schematics that offer a bit more performance (with possible drawbacks). Like "Icarus's Wing M" x% additional lift, but works on a (smaller) smaller range of degrees (up or down).

[ColonkinYT]

We were talking about principles. What can be done for the benefit and interest of all.
Naturally, there must be a balance. Give somewhere, take it somewhere else.
Mega super elements should not be.
But high-performance specialized elements - why not?

[Aaron Cain]

Are we really trying to kill the game?

 

When the present in my eyes [filtered]ed-up schematics get an overhaul in the "work even harder and do exploidable missions" section we can just shove the whole game down the drain.

 

At the moment doing industry is already nearing the 7th stage of hell, add mandatory mission runs for a NPC to that with a return on investment of 2% in materials and an extra loss in time and we can scrap probably half of the surviving industrialists.

 

I would add that we scrap ammunition production and those can Only be gotten through missions!

Uhm, Tier 3 and above ore.

Warpcells

Anything else thats vital to a pillar we can add as reward for a npc element in a sandbox game that should Maybe have never been introduced if we talk about man run game/missions/economy.

That a large group of players does nothing else then run missions because "there is nothing else to do" is worse enough, making those runs mandatory for industrialist who dont want to do missions is even worse design then the current schematics. They atleast do what was intended: cost cash and time and drive people out of mega-industry but not out of industry all together.

 

My 2 cents

[ColonkinYT]

11 minutes ago, Aaron Cain said:

Are we really trying to kill the game?

 

When the present in my eyes [filtered]ed-up schematics get an overhaul in the "work even harder and do exploidable missions" section we can just shove the whole game down the drain.

 

At the moment doing industry is already nearing the 7th stage of hell, add mandatory mission runs for a NPC to that with a return on investment of 2% in materials and an extra loss in time and we can scrap probably half of the surviving industrialists.

 

I would add that we scrap ammunition production and those can Only be gotten through missions!

Uhm, Tier 3 and above ore.

Warpcells

Anything else thats vital to a pillar we can add as reward for a npc element in a sandbox game that should Maybe have never been introduced if we talk about man run game/missions/economy.

That a large group of players does nothing else then run missions because "there is nothing else to do" is worse enough, making those runs mandatory for industrialist who dont want to do missions is even worse design then the current schematics. They atleast do what was intended: cost cash and time and drive people out of mega-industry but not out of industry all together.

 

My 2 cents

C'mon.
This is "if" reasoning.
On the example of the same schemes, it was clear that the developers were hitting a concrete wall with the stubbornness of a ram. What they were trying to achieve we can only guess.
But even this system, with the right balance, could be made more interesting and efficient.
Here the discussion is only about this.
We understand that they will do what they want anyway and then they will wonder why the players did not accept it.

Regarding the NPC, there is currently no viable option to do without it. Not in the gaming industry either. Perhaps, of course, I don’t know of reverse examples and you will develop an ingenious system without NPCs.

[Aaron Cain]

Well, in general NQ is not known to take over the best ideas but those that limit gameplay and such. this limits it badly.

Thats all