Forums » Suggestions
That is why, at the beginning of my posts, I noted that anything about station defences (other than SFs), station destroyability, station construction, and "all notes/statements about ... and anything else non-essential to crafting, supply, or demand should be considered strictly secondary".
Buildings do not shrink, neither should stations "shrink" unless part of them is destroyed.
You do not need to own the station to do crafting, you simply have to bid for production time from the station's LARGE facilities if you do not own it. For example, I have 1000 Aquean Ore I want to refine to Premium Aquean Ore, which will take 1 hour of station Oobleck's single Aquean Ore Processing Facility. I then pay the station's fee of 200cr/hr for the use of said facility, my order starts processing and, 1 hour later, my Premium Aquean Ore is ready for shipment.
I would like to stay away from stations where players own PART of it to avoid any nasty issues about who can do what where and to avoid everyone needing to purchase a $6,000 espresso machine just so they can all get themselves Cappuccinos; that is what Starbucks is for. Good factories are not just machines and a little space; they are talented workers and large-volume machines and lots of space. Economy of scale dude.
You can offer missions for other players to get you stuff, but you have to have them finish the mission(s) BEFORE you can order the station to process the materials.
I had not thought of spawning bus NPCs, especially ones that could level like characters... Ever played Majesty??? Nevermind... -- I would still like to see nation states stockpiling busses to provide. This would create a constant demand for busses (a good first-product for new shipyards) as well as hold to economic realism. Let me think about leveling NPCs some more, I feel conflicted about them. In any case, they would come much later than the immediate crafting system.
As for station destructibility, I was trying to leave a decent summary of what we have concluded. BtW, no one says you have to build a station. You only do if you want to manage one. You can simply rent perfectly fine facilities from established stations otherwise (which everyone will have to do at first since no one will have a station). That is part of the reason I want to keep owning a station separate from getting uber-items. Station management should be a fun ALTERNATIVE to PVP and other activities, not a prerequisite for doing well or holding a distinct advantage. Another possibility, make fewer enemies. I have been playing for months now and there is still no one that would go out of their way to destory my Carb Shack in Itan or backwoods Divinia. I would note that I did capitalize MONTHS of time and noted that the total loss is truely not to be discounted. If you disagree with my summary of the topic, then please say something, otherwise, I would like to just drop it.
I think I am going to post a suggestion for the immediate, first-implementation of the crafting system. Then interesting addtions (good things unneccessary for the implementation of a crafting based economy) can be discussed in another (set of? LOL) thread(s).
[Edit: I have updated my spreadsheet again. Red background means unneccessary for now. Blue means I have not had a chance to move the goods into the appropriate "Used In" cells. I will try and get to the crew and station upkeep costs tommorow morning. BtW, the old link is dead b/c server is doing I don't know what...]
http://max.cs.kzoo.edu/~srobbins/digital/VO_Economy_Parts.xls
Buildings do not shrink, neither should stations "shrink" unless part of them is destroyed.
You do not need to own the station to do crafting, you simply have to bid for production time from the station's LARGE facilities if you do not own it. For example, I have 1000 Aquean Ore I want to refine to Premium Aquean Ore, which will take 1 hour of station Oobleck's single Aquean Ore Processing Facility. I then pay the station's fee of 200cr/hr for the use of said facility, my order starts processing and, 1 hour later, my Premium Aquean Ore is ready for shipment.
I would like to stay away from stations where players own PART of it to avoid any nasty issues about who can do what where and to avoid everyone needing to purchase a $6,000 espresso machine just so they can all get themselves Cappuccinos; that is what Starbucks is for. Good factories are not just machines and a little space; they are talented workers and large-volume machines and lots of space. Economy of scale dude.
You can offer missions for other players to get you stuff, but you have to have them finish the mission(s) BEFORE you can order the station to process the materials.
I had not thought of spawning bus NPCs, especially ones that could level like characters... Ever played Majesty??? Nevermind... -- I would still like to see nation states stockpiling busses to provide. This would create a constant demand for busses (a good first-product for new shipyards) as well as hold to economic realism. Let me think about leveling NPCs some more, I feel conflicted about them. In any case, they would come much later than the immediate crafting system.
As for station destructibility, I was trying to leave a decent summary of what we have concluded. BtW, no one says you have to build a station. You only do if you want to manage one. You can simply rent perfectly fine facilities from established stations otherwise (which everyone will have to do at first since no one will have a station). That is part of the reason I want to keep owning a station separate from getting uber-items. Station management should be a fun ALTERNATIVE to PVP and other activities, not a prerequisite for doing well or holding a distinct advantage. Another possibility, make fewer enemies. I have been playing for months now and there is still no one that would go out of their way to destory my Carb Shack in Itan or backwoods Divinia. I would note that I did capitalize MONTHS of time and noted that the total loss is truely not to be discounted. If you disagree with my summary of the topic, then please say something, otherwise, I would like to just drop it.
I think I am going to post a suggestion for the immediate, first-implementation of the crafting system. Then interesting addtions (good things unneccessary for the implementation of a crafting based economy) can be discussed in another (set of? LOL) thread(s).
[Edit: I have updated my spreadsheet again. Red background means unneccessary for now. Blue means I have not had a chance to move the goods into the appropriate "Used In" cells. I will try and get to the crew and station upkeep costs tommorow morning. BtW, the old link is dead b/c server is doing I don't know what...]
http://max.cs.kzoo.edu/~srobbins/digital/VO_Economy_Parts.xls
Why would Wally ever buy a less-then-optimal processing facility? A factory owner will allways invest in the best/newest stuff, it just makes no sense to buy outdated stuff unless it's *really dirt cheap*
And why would he have to build his own research facility just to upgrade his processing facility? You can bet someone else allready did that research, so Wally would be better of either just buying the new plans from that guy (probably the same guy that sold him his processing facility in the first place) or just buying a proper processing facility in the first place.
If Wally just happened to be the first one to do research into Aquean Ore refinement, he would then be Wally the Aquean Ore Refinement Facility Production Person, producing refinement facilities, not producing the ore.
My point is, redoing research that someone else allready did is stupid. In single player games this works because there you are the only one doing said research, but in a *Massive* Multiplayer game *all* research will be *done* after a month and you should just be able to buy the research *results* from the person that did that piece.
So unless something is implemented that makes eternal research possible (like Darvud's orgininal idea) doing research makes no sense...
And why would he have to build his own research facility just to upgrade his processing facility? You can bet someone else allready did that research, so Wally would be better of either just buying the new plans from that guy (probably the same guy that sold him his processing facility in the first place) or just buying a proper processing facility in the first place.
If Wally just happened to be the first one to do research into Aquean Ore refinement, he would then be Wally the Aquean Ore Refinement Facility Production Person, producing refinement facilities, not producing the ore.
My point is, redoing research that someone else allready did is stupid. In single player games this works because there you are the only one doing said research, but in a *Massive* Multiplayer game *all* research will be *done* after a month and you should just be able to buy the research *results* from the person that did that piece.
So unless something is implemented that makes eternal research possible (like Darvud's orgininal idea) doing research makes no sense...
Wally might not have tons of money to buy the bleeding edge of technology and purchases a less-then-optimal processing facility. The same reason why all of us aren't running top of the line computers.
Wally might redo the research because he can't afford to purchase the information from some one else. If he does purchase the information, he'll never know if he is getting very good information or very bad information. chances are big guilds will be the people that have the most high quality research, and these people aren't the ones that are going to go right ahead and give away that information, they will keep it and use it to their advantage.
Wally might redo the research because he can't afford to purchase the information from some one else. If he does purchase the information, he'll never know if he is getting very good information or very bad information. chances are big guilds will be the people that have the most high quality research, and these people aren't the ones that are going to go right ahead and give away that information, they will keep it and use it to their advantage.
Well, instead of "eternal" research, you could have something like Phaserlight's "Sliders" idea, and instead of items being "UBER", they would just be "Customized" in certain ways.
Some players will like flying heavy ships with big weaponry. Some players will like flying light fighters. Some will like mining and doing the crafting thing. Some will like trading and making money in the new "realistic" economy.
All of these players will want different items, different ships, and different widgets, all for different reasons.
Some players will have a great Aquean Ore facility, for example. But what if that person is Serco and you're Itani? What if you're a pirate without access to that station? What if you RP a recluse, living in backwater Pelatus, crafting up moonshine? There are all kinds of reasons that efforts would be duplicated. Perhaps one guild wants to give its members a price break on IBG Centurions, to do that, it must make them itself and cut its sales margins.
Some players will like flying heavy ships with big weaponry. Some players will like flying light fighters. Some will like mining and doing the crafting thing. Some will like trading and making money in the new "realistic" economy.
All of these players will want different items, different ships, and different widgets, all for different reasons.
Some players will have a great Aquean Ore facility, for example. But what if that person is Serco and you're Itani? What if you're a pirate without access to that station? What if you RP a recluse, living in backwater Pelatus, crafting up moonshine? There are all kinds of reasons that efforts would be duplicated. Perhaps one guild wants to give its members a price break on IBG Centurions, to do that, it must make them itself and cut its sales margins.
Wally would buy the "less-than-optimal" facilities because those are the only originals available. That is why Wally then invests in processing research. Also, factory owners do not automatically invest in the "best/newest" stuff, they invest in the most efficient use of their resources. The last few conversion efficiency percentage points would cost millions of credits to research; if someone did not use a particular procedure very often, then this cost would heavily outweigh the benefit of increased conversion efficiency. I am using research as much to make stations individualized and specialized/customizable as to make research available more than once in a blue moon. I would like research to be a constant thing.
I have put in no way for people to buy/sell "plans" of any sort. Also, stations do not produce modules or facilities for other stations; they only build them for themselves. If an oil company researches a better oil extraction method, then they simply use it -- they do not immediately try to expand into rig construction.
Also, I must note that NO research is required to implement a crafting-based system (thus why it is red-ed out on my spreadsheet). I would also like to note that companies today duplicate each other's research efforts ALL THE TIME. [AMD/Intel; Pfizer/Merc...] This is because they are competing instead of cooperating. Both Darvud's original research idea (which I missed reading earlier, sorry) and cooperative/public research (I originally assumed all station were competitive) are interesting; let me think about them some more...
Um, yeah, what Suicidal Lemming and LeberMac said about research too -
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/11406?page=8#141189
Phaserlight's slider's idea really seems fit for building things with current technology, not researching new technology. Besides, LeberMac, then I would lose a place for your prototype crafting mini-game. :)
P.S. Still working on full first-implementation suggestion...
I have put in no way for people to buy/sell "plans" of any sort. Also, stations do not produce modules or facilities for other stations; they only build them for themselves. If an oil company researches a better oil extraction method, then they simply use it -- they do not immediately try to expand into rig construction.
Also, I must note that NO research is required to implement a crafting-based system (thus why it is red-ed out on my spreadsheet). I would also like to note that companies today duplicate each other's research efforts ALL THE TIME. [AMD/Intel; Pfizer/Merc...] This is because they are competing instead of cooperating. Both Darvud's original research idea (which I missed reading earlier, sorry) and cooperative/public research (I originally assumed all station were competitive) are interesting; let me think about them some more...
Um, yeah, what Suicidal Lemming and LeberMac said about research too -
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/11406?page=8#141189
Phaserlight's slider's idea really seems fit for building things with current technology, not researching new technology. Besides, LeberMac, then I would lose a place for your prototype crafting mini-game. :)
P.S. Still working on full first-implementation suggestion...
Both Intel and AMD do their own research, wich they then licence to dozens of smaller chip producing companies. Buying a licence from someone else is a lot cheaper then doing your own research.
But we're not talking two or three stations (companies) here, with a couple of thousand players there will be at least a couple of hundred player owned stations. Do you think printing shops do research into printing presses? or ink? No way, they just buy from one of the few companies that do produce printing presses and that do research into those machines.
It won't be "Some players will like flying heavy ships with big weaponry. Some players will like flying light fighters. Some will like mining and doing the crafting thing. Some will like trading and making money in the new "realistic" economy."
It'll be LOTS of players will fly heavy, and LOTS of players will fly light fighters, so there will be large markets for both types of craft. Right now there may not be that many players, but any mechanism put into the game should anticipate on the future.
WHY are only the originals available? WHY couldn't people buy and sell plans? that just makes no sense. In real life people buy and sell plans all the time. A lot of companies have their research done in universities, or specialised research companies. And they either keep the results a secret if it is a small market with few players, or they try to recuperate costs by selling licences. I know I would want to get back some of the costs of my research by selling licences...
I wouldn't call the sliders thing research. Reseach produces something that is new, original and noticably better then the original.
But we're not talking two or three stations (companies) here, with a couple of thousand players there will be at least a couple of hundred player owned stations. Do you think printing shops do research into printing presses? or ink? No way, they just buy from one of the few companies that do produce printing presses and that do research into those machines.
It won't be "Some players will like flying heavy ships with big weaponry. Some players will like flying light fighters. Some will like mining and doing the crafting thing. Some will like trading and making money in the new "realistic" economy."
It'll be LOTS of players will fly heavy, and LOTS of players will fly light fighters, so there will be large markets for both types of craft. Right now there may not be that many players, but any mechanism put into the game should anticipate on the future.
WHY are only the originals available? WHY couldn't people buy and sell plans? that just makes no sense. In real life people buy and sell plans all the time. A lot of companies have their research done in universities, or specialised research companies. And they either keep the results a secret if it is a small market with few players, or they try to recuperate costs by selling licences. I know I would want to get back some of the costs of my research by selling licences...
I wouldn't call the sliders thing research. Reseach produces something that is new, original and noticably better then the original.
Hi,
with a limited amount of items to invent the research facility has little sence. Even if the blueprints can not be bought in AuctionHouse (AH).
Me as businessman will choose 1 or 2 item cathegories (e.g. cannons), invent all in this cathegory and then demolish the facility. So the research facility will work only a week or few weeks.
I suggest that you spend same money on licenses or blueprints instead of research facility.
But my main problem is still: who will buy my cannons?
- I do not think that the players consume 1000 cannons of one kind a week. 10-100 cannons/week is not mass production.
- if the player dies he will not return to the trade center to buy my cannon. So I need a distribution network.
- And there will be lot of companies with their own cannons ...
If NPCs (e.g. goverment, reseller...) buy the cannons then how will you control the market?
- how will the NPC decide what cannon worth to buy? The players have to pay for advertising, bribe or simply they have to bid for a tendering each week?
- You'll have to setup for every NPC how many items do they need. How many and what level of cannons, ships, helms, pens, pans, etc. they order each week.
Regards,
Darkwood
Edit:
I am not sure that mass production worth to implement in an adventure game.
If I am a cheef of a company then my duty is to govern it; not to fligh in a heavyly armed yacht and hunt for bounties.
with a limited amount of items to invent the research facility has little sence. Even if the blueprints can not be bought in AuctionHouse (AH).
Me as businessman will choose 1 or 2 item cathegories (e.g. cannons), invent all in this cathegory and then demolish the facility. So the research facility will work only a week or few weeks.
I suggest that you spend same money on licenses or blueprints instead of research facility.
But my main problem is still: who will buy my cannons?
- I do not think that the players consume 1000 cannons of one kind a week. 10-100 cannons/week is not mass production.
- if the player dies he will not return to the trade center to buy my cannon. So I need a distribution network.
- And there will be lot of companies with their own cannons ...
If NPCs (e.g. goverment, reseller...) buy the cannons then how will you control the market?
- how will the NPC decide what cannon worth to buy? The players have to pay for advertising, bribe or simply they have to bid for a tendering each week?
- You'll have to setup for every NPC how many items do they need. How many and what level of cannons, ships, helms, pens, pans, etc. they order each week.
Regards,
Darkwood
Edit:
I am not sure that mass production worth to implement in an adventure game.
If I am a cheef of a company then my duty is to govern it; not to fligh in a heavyly armed yacht and hunt for bounties.
@Noid: yes, in an ideal world it would be great to be able to research and invent our own new, original, improved weapons.
But practically how do you expect this to be implemented? Are you going to have hundreds of players each designing their own new weapon models, graphics, illumination maps, not to mention coding and debugging these weapons? Can you imagine the load time for a sector with 1,000 different weapons each with their own unique graphics? How are you going to insure that these brand new "better" designs don't totally ruin balance and polarize gameplay? Take some time and really think this through and you may begin to see why I think this is a bad idea.
But practically how do you expect this to be implemented? Are you going to have hundreds of players each designing their own new weapon models, graphics, illumination maps, not to mention coding and debugging these weapons? Can you imagine the load time for a sector with 1,000 different weapons each with their own unique graphics? How are you going to insure that these brand new "better" designs don't totally ruin balance and polarize gameplay? Take some time and really think this through and you may begin to see why I think this is a bad idea.
The Noid, I totally agree that "any mechanism put into the game should anticipate on the future". However, any INITIAL mechanism put into the game cannot depend on that since that level of demand (and other factors I am sure) will originally not exist. Can anyone else think of anything that will need to be anticipated, but will likely/certainly not exist in the beginning?
I have it set up so people can only buy the originals, not buy/sell/trade plans because, from a programming perspective, that should be easier/simpler/less work because there is less additional content. I agree that might be interesting to add later on, but I am trying to focus on what has to happen FIRST -- the very initial implementation -- in order for the system to work and to allow for additional content to be added in later renditions. For example, after my system was put in place, you could let stations buy facilities' tech plans from each other:
Station A has researched at least 1% above any %5 mark (e.g. A has 61%, which is 1% above 60%).
Station B is completely new (i.e. has 50% conversion efficiency [CE]) and wants to upgrade (duh, as has been mentioned before).
Station B negotiates the purchase of Station A's best exportable technology (in this example, 60% CE).
Some ship transports this datapad to Station B from Station A, then Station B is allowed to upgrade to the datapad's facility's CE all at once, for 1/5 the total cost and 1/10 the total time it would have taken without help (i.e. the datapad).
Station B now spends 85,238,995 credits and 35 hours upgrading its facility(ies) instead of spending the 426,194,975 credits and 344 hours it would have taken to do all the research itself (without speeding research).
This would also lead to the interesting pirating of datapad shipments!
This is not WoW, I do not particularly like WoW, and there is not and will never be a universal Auction House, darvud... Anyway, you are severely underestimating the time and resources it will take to research stuff. I remind the reader here that research is a SECOND step, after the initial implementation, but here is what I was thinking. All facilities' CE costs 10,000,000 credits and 20 hours of research for the first 1% CE increase. Each subsequent 1% CE increase costs 1.3 times as many credits and takes 1.1 as much times as the previous 1% increase. I have added a "Research Costs" worksheet to my spreadsheet.
http://max.cs.kzoo.edu/~srobbins/digital/VO_Economy_Parts.xls
Research time for any particular project may be decreased by 5% for a 10% increase in the cost, as many times as desired.
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/11406?page=7#140934
Facilities never need to be demolished as, if you do not use them, they do not cost much in upkeep (a bit of water...). Additionally, I would like to see facilities NEVER demolished except under unusual circumstances. If a facility has a point beyond which it is worthless and players are reaching that point, I would prefer to see additional content added instead.
The major nations' (and to some extent, minor factions') stockpiles will ALWAYS be happy to buy ALL your cannons. With this stockpile, new NPCs can be created and equipped. I suspect that this will originally result in many sub-optimum Border Patrol vessels patrolling the border and engaging in firefights.
Players can sell cannons to factions buy placing a sell-bid at a faction's station. For example, I want to sell 1000 cannons for 350cr each, then I bid [1000 "Cannon MkI" -350] at the station where my cannons are located. The stockpile A.I. for each nation then, once a day, attempts to spend 1/7 of its bank account on ships/weapons/equipment. This DOES mean that if the market gets flooded, then you may not be able to sell your cannons until it clears up.
Phaserlight, I do not think that The Noid meant that players should be allowed to create original research products. That is clearly not feasible or reasonable. I think that he meant what he says, and I totally agree: "I wouldn't call the sliders thing research. Reseach produces something that is new, original and noticably better then the original." For now, I am leaving new weapons research to the Devs.
I have it set up so people can only buy the originals, not buy/sell/trade plans because, from a programming perspective, that should be easier/simpler/less work because there is less additional content. I agree that might be interesting to add later on, but I am trying to focus on what has to happen FIRST -- the very initial implementation -- in order for the system to work and to allow for additional content to be added in later renditions. For example, after my system was put in place, you could let stations buy facilities' tech plans from each other:
Station A has researched at least 1% above any %5 mark (e.g. A has 61%, which is 1% above 60%).
Station B is completely new (i.e. has 50% conversion efficiency [CE]) and wants to upgrade (duh, as has been mentioned before).
Station B negotiates the purchase of Station A's best exportable technology (in this example, 60% CE).
Some ship transports this datapad to Station B from Station A, then Station B is allowed to upgrade to the datapad's facility's CE all at once, for 1/5 the total cost and 1/10 the total time it would have taken without help (i.e. the datapad).
Station B now spends 85,238,995 credits and 35 hours upgrading its facility(ies) instead of spending the 426,194,975 credits and 344 hours it would have taken to do all the research itself (without speeding research).
This would also lead to the interesting pirating of datapad shipments!
This is not WoW, I do not particularly like WoW, and there is not and will never be a universal Auction House, darvud... Anyway, you are severely underestimating the time and resources it will take to research stuff. I remind the reader here that research is a SECOND step, after the initial implementation, but here is what I was thinking. All facilities' CE costs 10,000,000 credits and 20 hours of research for the first 1% CE increase. Each subsequent 1% CE increase costs 1.3 times as many credits and takes 1.1 as much times as the previous 1% increase. I have added a "Research Costs" worksheet to my spreadsheet.
http://max.cs.kzoo.edu/~srobbins/digital/VO_Economy_Parts.xls
Research time for any particular project may be decreased by 5% for a 10% increase in the cost, as many times as desired.
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/11406?page=7#140934
Facilities never need to be demolished as, if you do not use them, they do not cost much in upkeep (a bit of water...). Additionally, I would like to see facilities NEVER demolished except under unusual circumstances. If a facility has a point beyond which it is worthless and players are reaching that point, I would prefer to see additional content added instead.
The major nations' (and to some extent, minor factions') stockpiles will ALWAYS be happy to buy ALL your cannons. With this stockpile, new NPCs can be created and equipped. I suspect that this will originally result in many sub-optimum Border Patrol vessels patrolling the border and engaging in firefights.
Players can sell cannons to factions buy placing a sell-bid at a faction's station. For example, I want to sell 1000 cannons for 350cr each, then I bid [1000 "Cannon MkI" -350] at the station where my cannons are located. The stockpile A.I. for each nation then, once a day, attempts to spend 1/7 of its bank account on ships/weapons/equipment. This DOES mean that if the market gets flooded, then you may not be able to sell your cannons until it clears up.
Phaserlight, I do not think that The Noid meant that players should be allowed to create original research products. That is clearly not feasible or reasonable. I think that he meant what he says, and I totally agree: "I wouldn't call the sliders thing research. Reseach produces something that is new, original and noticably better then the original." For now, I am leaving new weapons research to the Devs.
I agree as well. I see crafting as an entirely different beast than research, and the two aren't necessarily interdependant. Provided that research is not infinitely sustainable and has an upper maximum (as per your example) I see nothing wrong with it... but a crafting system does not necessarily require a research system. (I also think it's important to note that your definition of research is different from a so-called "tech tree" which I'm also against.)
The reason I suggested the sliders in the first place was as an option to provide balanced variance in crafted items without arbitrary dice rolling or "mudflation."
I also disagree with the idea of mini-games in crafting, b.t.w... I think you're confusing me with someone else :P.
The reason I suggested the sliders in the first place was as an option to provide balanced variance in crafted items without arbitrary dice rolling or "mudflation."
I also disagree with the idea of mini-games in crafting, b.t.w... I think you're confusing me with someone else :P.
Nope, Phaserlight, I know that the mini-game guy is LeberMac. I figure that actually creating new/unique items, like prototypes, might be an interesting place to toss in a mini-game. I figure relatively few people would be interested in trying it, and even fewer would be/get good enough that they could make better items, but that would toss some extra goodies into the universe.
I am not exactly against the slider idea, I just think that implementing and balancing it would be relatively difficult whereas I am sure that my suggestion is rather simple/easy.
I am not exactly against the slider idea, I just think that implementing and balancing it would be relatively difficult whereas I am sure that my suggestion is rather simple/easy.
The easyest (and probably not ideal) implementation of eternal research would be if a (faction|guild|nation) (not an individual player) could (buy|construct) a research facility, invest in staff and time, and after XX days get a neutron cannon that does 1% more damage than the one they have blueprints for now.
In reality, all other weapons do 1% less damage, and all armour is 1% weaker, but the net effect is the same.
Now you have a weapon that is better then the rest. People will want to buy it, so you can sell the weapon.
Rivalling (companies|guilds|nations) will want to steal the blueprints.
Rivalling (companies|guilds|nations) will want to knock out your production and research facilities.
Rivalling (companies|guilds|nations) will want to do their own research over yours.
To avoid the situation where only the neutron blaster is at +100 and every other weapon type is useless, items that start to lag behind are cheaper to research. This way there will allways be someone who does the research for newbie weapons, cause even on those you can get a profit.
Once a weapon really is outdated, noone will want to produce it anymore and it'll quickly disapear from the universe.
This will:
A. make investing in research sensible
B. make people actually want to buy your (faction|guild|nation)'s stuff, cause it's better
C. make corporate an nation espionage actually mean something
D. provide a endless money sink
E. give a bonus to large guilds, they can do more research!
F. Allow for different research tactics. Either stay in front, or lag behind and then steal the newest plans to get back in business a lot cheaper.
In reality, all other weapons do 1% less damage, and all armour is 1% weaker, but the net effect is the same.
Now you have a weapon that is better then the rest. People will want to buy it, so you can sell the weapon.
Rivalling (companies|guilds|nations) will want to steal the blueprints.
Rivalling (companies|guilds|nations) will want to knock out your production and research facilities.
Rivalling (companies|guilds|nations) will want to do their own research over yours.
To avoid the situation where only the neutron blaster is at +100 and every other weapon type is useless, items that start to lag behind are cheaper to research. This way there will allways be someone who does the research for newbie weapons, cause even on those you can get a profit.
Once a weapon really is outdated, noone will want to produce it anymore and it'll quickly disapear from the universe.
This will:
A. make investing in research sensible
B. make people actually want to buy your (faction|guild|nation)'s stuff, cause it's better
C. make corporate an nation espionage actually mean something
D. provide a endless money sink
E. give a bonus to large guilds, they can do more research!
F. Allow for different research tactics. Either stay in front, or lag behind and then steal the newest plans to get back in business a lot cheaper.
[EDIT: All updated Sat, Oct 8, 2005, 9:21am.]
[EDIT: Re-updated Wed, Oct 19, 2005, 12:57pm.]
I am first going to outline my suggestion for an initial implementation of a crafting-based economy, then I will get to the important part -- What needs to change/happen FIRST for this, or anyone else’s crafting economy, to become an acceptable reality? After that I will toss on some icing of how some of the other ideas in this forum could exist in this economy AFTER it has first been implemented.
Here is the Excel spreadsheet that goes with this post (only values worksheet is unfinished ATM) http://max.cs.kzoo.edu/~srobbins/digital/VO_Economy_Parts.xls
*** Suggested Initial Setup:
Established stations around planets should have a built-in demand (from the planet’s populace) for Civilian Textiles, Food, Purified Water, and Medical Supplies.
Established stations should initially be equipped with the following:
Capital - All Modules with 1 of each processing/production facility
Research - ???
Mining - Refining Module with 3 of each processing facility
Commercial - Industrial Factory Module w/ 3 of each production facility
Barracks - Armory Module with 2 of each production facility and Shipyard Module
All established stations should begin with 2 weeks worth of resources required for existence, and 1 week of resources for running all additional (i.e. production) facilities non-stop.
Each “Capital” station should begin with 8 NPC convoys, which can go on trading and mining missions, 50 Station Guard craft, and 10 Marshal craft. Nation-border wormhole stations should have 6 NPC convoys and 200 Station Guard craft. All other stations should begin with 4 NPC convoys and 30 Station Guard craft.
Each station should start with 1,000,000 credits worth of each good, weapon, equipment, and ammunition it currently sells, and 2,000,000 credits worth of each ship it currently sells. This is at CURRENT PRICES!!!
Each nation-state faction should begin with 500 Strike Force craft and 3000 Aerna Seekers. Each minor faction should begin with 30 Strike Force craft and 200 Aerna Seekers per station it owns. If Aerna Seekers are actually Strike Force munitions, then they should instead be spawned freely. I am actually rather unclear on this point and would appreciate it very much if someone would enlighten me.
Each nation/faction should receive a tax income of 1,000,000 credits per station per week.
*** General Production Overview:
All trade goods -- Creature Comforts, Industrial Goods, Ores, Production Goods, Ship Components, Weapon Components -- are produced by facilities in station modules -- Armory, Industrial Factory, Refining. Each good is produced/processed by a unique facility type. Goods production/processing facilities all begin with a 50% conversion efficiency (CE) and a 1-hour per run production time. When a good requires multiple input components, the sum of the components is used as the total number of input components (* See Important Points at the bottom! *). For example, Synthetic Hydrocarbons require both Purified Aquean Ore and Purified Carbonic Ore. If I put 75 Purified Aquean Ore and 75 Purified Carbonic Ore into a brand new Synthetic Hydrocarbons Production Facility (100 CU / hour @ 50% CE), then I will get (75+75)*0.50 = 75 CU of Synthetic Hydrocarbons out in an hour.
Only trade goods have a CE factor into their production. Specific final products -- Weapons, Ammunition, Equipment, and Ships -- already have a specific formulation for their manufacture. Another way to look at this is that production facilities for specific final products begin with a 100% CE. Also, specific final products use ALL of their components in their production. For example, I can make ONE (1) Plasma Cannon MkII using 1 Basic Targeting Systems, 0.92 Cooling Systems, 1 Plasma Core, 1 Power Regulators, and 0.2 of Steel, for a total of 4.12 goods to produce 1 weapon.
Shipyards must be loaded with a blueprints datapad for the specific variation of the ship model it wants to construct (i.e. it is used up ONCE) if the variation is non-basic; the shipyard can the produce as many of that model as it wishes forever more.
I believe that it may be beneficial to keep all currently “Government Issued” equipment 100% free and in infinite supply across the galaxy -- just say that traders you do not see move them and the planets produce them.
*** Trade Goods Requirements Explanation(s):
Apicene Ore Si O (strange silicates and trapped stuff)
Aquean Ore H O
Carbonic Ore C, junk elements
Denic Ore Odd stuff
Ferric Ore Fe, junk elements
Heliocene Ore Fe Mg Ni (differentiated)
Ishik Ore N H Cl Na Ca K
Lanthanic Ore Unrefined radioactives
Pentric Ore Rare, intact complex chemicals
Pyronic Ore Alloy/doping stuff
Silicate Ore Si O (common silicates)
VanAzek Ore Ti Hg
Xithricite Ore Xith?
I am skipping the rest of the explanations for why I chose what I did as the required components for trade goods, but if you want them for kicks or whatever, just ask and they can be yours.
*** Weapon Cost Overview:
All weapons with “Good”, “Very Good”, or “Excellent” targeting, or homing ammunition require an Advanced Targeting System.
All weapons with “Okay” targeting or proximity detonation ammunition require a Basic Targeting System.
Weapons with “Little” or “None” targeting do not require a targeting system.
All weapons require 1 Power Regulator.
All weapons require 1 Cooling System for every 50 energy-per-second (EPS) usage/rating.
Each weapon requires a final component based on its type (from name and in-game description) and size. Ion Cores are used for “ion” and “*-tron core” weapons. Phase Arrays are used for “phase” weapons and the Charged Cannon. Plasma Cores are used for “plasma” weapons and the Charged Cannon. Large-port weapons require 2 of this component while small-port weapons only require 1 each.
All weapons require 1 Steel / 500 kg.
Weapons require a Stabilizing System if they mass at least 1000 kg and have an Advanced Targeting System, excluding homing missile launchers.
Important Note: All “Conventional” (i.e. ammunition-based) weapons are constructed and will be sold UNLOADED.
Until craftable ammo is implemented, I suggest leaving ammo untouched.
All weapons have a production credit cost based on their complexity/technology/level restrictions.
*** Equipment Cost Overview:
All mining beams require 1 Basic Targeting System.
Mining beams require 1 Steel if they are small-port and 2 if they are large-port.
Mining beams require 1 Plasma Core for every 1 Rate they have .
Mining beams require 1 Cooling System for every Rate/Heat they have.
Mining beams require 1 Power Regulator for every 3 other powered components.
Mining beams that specialize in any particular ore(s) require 1 Purified sample of each of those ores.
All batteries require 1 Steel
Batteries require a {1 Corrosive Chemicals, 1 Industrial Metals} pair for every 6000 rating they possess. Their battery rating is determined by the product of their capacity and charge rate (capacity * charge rate = rating).
Fast Charge and Ultra Charge batteries also require 1 Catalysts to keep their recharge rate so high.
All repair modules each require 1 Advanced Targeting System, 1 Power Regulator, and 3 Steel.
All mineral Scanners each require 1 Advanced Targeting System.
All equipment has a production credit cost based on its complexity/technology/level restrictions.
*** Ship Cost Overview:
All non-capital ships require 1 Consumer Electronics, 1 Oxygen Recycling System, and 0.25 Vismetal for the cockpit and life-support system.
All ships require 1 XiRite Alloy, and 1 Steel for every 1000 hull hit points.
All ships require 1 Plasteel for every 1000 hull hit points above 1.5 times the mass.
All ships require 1 Simple Plastics for every 10 cargo space.
All ships require 1 Basic Targeting System if they have weapons ports.
All ships require 1 Advanced Targeting System for every 2 weapons they have above 1 (round down.
All ships require 1 Electronic Components for every small port and 3 each for every large port.
All ships require 1 NanoPigments for every 5000kg of mass.
All ships require 1 Plasma Core and 1 Silksteel for every 100N of thrust.
All ships require 1 Industrial Metals and 1 Ion Core for ever 5 m/s max speed over 40 m/s.
All ships require 1 Stabilizing System for every 1Nm of spin torque above 5Nm, and an additional 1 Stabilizing System for every 1Nm above 10Nm.
All ships also require 1 fewer than an additional 1 Plasma Core for every 50m/s turbo speed above top cruising speed PLUS an additional 1 Plasma Core for every 20m/s turbo above 100 m/s over top speed.
All ships require 1 Cooling System and 1 Inert Chemicals for every 5m/s turbo speed above 50m/s.
All ships require 1 Power Regulators for every 3 other high-power components (Advanced Targeting Systems, Cooling Systems, Ion Core, Plasma Core, Stabilizing Systems).
All ships have an assembly cost related to their size-complexity and their level of technology. This cost formula uses the total number of processing steps all of a ship’s components required (STEPS), how much the ship’s hull hit points exceed 1.5 times its mass (HP/Mass-1.5 = ARMOR), and the ship’s thrust divided by mass divided by 100 (Nm/Kg/100 = ENGINE):
((STEPS ^5)/1000000000)*((ARMOR +1)^2)*(((ENGINE -3)^2)/5+1).
*** How The Stockpile A.I. Should Operate
Each day at midnight GMT, the Stockpile A.I. for each faction should collect all sell bids from all stations. It should then attempt to spend 1/7 of its treasury (which is increased daily from station operations and weekly from tax income). If the A.I. can purchase all bids for ≤ 1/7 its treasury, then it will do so. If it cannot, then it will first attempt to purchase anything that it is low on (i.e. inventory has dropped below starting levels). The A.I. will next attempt to purchase a uniform distribution of items while preferring items priced favorably compared to an expected price based on the average number of refining/processing/production steps its components require and the rarity of the initial ores.
Players should be able to purchase items from stations for 110% of the average price the Stockpile A.I. paid for the item. For example, the A.I. buys 5 cannons at 500cr and 5 cannons at 1000cr. The average price is 750cr, so players may buy up to 10 cannons for 825cr. If a player buys 5 cannons and the A.I. then buys 5 more cannons at 1250cr, the new average price will be 1000cr and players will have to pony up 1100cr to buy one.
Additionally, low license level item (weapons, equipment, ship) prices should be subsidized. All currently “Government Issued” stuff should stay 100% free for everyone. Players whose highest license level is 3 or less may purchase items whose highest license level requirement is 0 for 5% of the average price the Stockpile A.I. paid for the item. Players whose highest license level is 4 or less may purchase items whose highest license level requirement is 1 for 20% of the average acquisition price. Players whose highest license level is 4 or less may purchase items whose highest license level requirement is 2 for 35% of the average acquisition price. Players whose highest license level is 5 or less may purchase items whose highest license level requirement is 3 for 50% of the average acquisition price. To discourage farming with a newbie or an alternate character, discounted items should only be purchasable while the player has fewer than 100,000 credits, and newbie players should perhaps have a limited ability to transfer credits to someone else. There are NO discounts available at non-nation-state (Serco, Itani, UIT) stations. NO faction-aligned item or badge-requiring item is ever subsidized.
Mined ore is valued at 7/10 its experience value cubed (0.7*xp)^3. Premium Heliocene, since it is mined with one level of refinement, is valued as though it had been refined once. However, as a component, Premium Heliocene has no processing steps.
Refined ores are valued at their mined/previous value, divided by 0.8 minus 0.01 for every step of refinement they have been through (MineValue/(0.8-(0.01*RefinementSteps))).
All other/subsequent goods are valued at the average value of their components divided by 0.9 minus 0.01 times the average number of processing steps their components have been through (AvgCompValue/(0.9-(0.01*AvgCompRefinementSteps))).
*** *** NOW FOR THE IMPORTANT PART *** ***
POINT 1) NPC defenses / combat effectiveness MUST be increased to at least between 75%-90% of player defenses / combat effectiveness. Otherwise, all NPC convoys will be in danger of being quickly overrun and the whole universe has a good chance at looking like post-WWII Europe. This is ESPECIALLY, more than doubly true if stations are ever made destructible.
POINT 2) NPC convoys have to work together better, and the young whipper-snappers need to learn them well ‘bout a good hard day’s ‘roid farming.
POINT 3) Advanced, complicated items (i.e. SHIPS) are going to suddenly be FAR more expensive than they are now unless ... um... So, according to this thread: http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/11768 , that is a good thing, so no worries! :) Also, newbies get subsidies.
POINT 4) With more expensive items that players can and will lose, offering some form of insurance may be important.
POINT 5) For multiple-component goods, should good production use the sum of the CU of the input components, or the number of sets of components when determining how many CU of product is produced?
POINT 6) What can established research stations start with that is reasonable?
*** Final Overview Of My Suggestion -OR- What I See As The Ramifications Of My Suggestion
First, here are what I think are the positive points of my suggestion:
Ammunition does not need to be produced or transported yet.
Only about 17 new goods need to be added.
I only want to deprecate 1 good (“Heliocene Ore”), if it even exists. It can be left in for kicks though, just no one can produce it and you cannot mine it with my system.
Most of the current goods (and the new ones) can be created and have a final use/destination, thus do not need to be deprecated.
Stations, especially those around planets, have a constant demand to help suck materials out of the universe that are not used in weapons or ships.
This initial economy can work just FINE without:
- Changing ammo at all.
- Adding any form of insurance.
- Research of any description.
- Datapads of any description.
- Working NPC traders.
- Working NPC miners.
- Adding anything dynamic to existing stations.
- Adjustable/customizable equipment of any sort.
- Mini-games of any sort.
The suggestion can work without NPC traders and miners because, in the beginning (I think we all hope those exist at some point in the future) each faction can have a universal inventory from which any station may take parts (which is essentially abstracted NPC traders) and stations, or the universal inventory, can simply be given an income rate of various ores (which is essentially abstracted NPC miners), just like the Stockpile A.I. receives a tax income each week.
This is not to say that any of the above are bad per se, just that they are additions to a bare-minimum crafting-based economy. I will even throw out that you could implement sliders-constructed items by allowing players to tweak the input component ratios in order to get items with different statistics.
Second, here are what I think are the negative points of my suggestion:
It requires that 17 new goods be added to the universe.
“Planet” demand will need to be tweaked until a balance is found between player-supply and planet-demand unless NPCs are operating well.
A system of modular stations will need to be coded.
Existing stations will need to be re-written as having modules and facilities.
Stations will need to keep track of limited stockpiles of goods, items, and ships.
A crafting table in the stations database will need to be created and setup to operate in an efficient manner.
Factions will have to keep track of their NPC vessels.
The entire economy could, theoretically, collapse under the constant pressure of war.
A stockpile A.I. will need to be written.
A cost database for all goods, items, and ships will need to be created.
See important points #1, #2, #4, and #6.
However, I am reasonably certain that ANY crafting-based economic system that might be implemented will run into many of the same “problems”. The following is why I believe that my suggestion is a RELATIVELY simple one compared to the myriad possible alternatives.
By breaking stations down into modules and facilities, I have attempted to provide a simple object-oriented approach to determining what established stations can do AND provide a clear path to adding player-owned stations in the future (which has been mentioned by the Devs before). If Vendetta is not using an object-oriented pardigm (which would really surprise me), then I am TERRIBLY sorry and all the suggestions contained here-in should be looked at with a bucket of salt. Also, I was attempting to only use things I am fairly confident I could program in C++. I know the Devs are using LISP somewhat, but I do not know to what extent. Again, if they are only using LISP and any of this is significantly harder using that language, then I am TERRIBLY sorry. I, unfortunately, do not have much experience with LISP; my A.I. professors kept having us use MatLab and Python...
The initial setup I suggested is intended to provide ample resources to the universe so that fighting-oriented players may happily continue without worrying about supply/demand in the short-term (~1 month). Please comment if you think stations need more beginning resources in order to keep the universe running for a month pretending that NO more resources are coming into the system. This way, there would be plenty of time on the production server to modify planet-station output/demand according to actual throughput figures.
A simple (just names and numbers) station database table could easily list all the stations in the universe and identify their locations, make-up (modules and facilities), and their inventory (e.g. how many of each ship and item they have).
A crafting table in the same database could then keep track of each station’s production orders: Station - Item - Quantity - Time Finished. This is because all production orders must be supplied and paid for entirely up front. Also, adding and removing orders from the table is equally hassle-free. Each 15 minutes, the system simply needs to remove all orders whose Time Finished is before the current time and place the Quantity of Item into the appropriate Station. To add an entry, check for any orders before the current entry (same station, same item), figure the number of production quarter-hours they will take in total plus the number of production quarter-hours the new order will take, and divide the sum by the station’s quarter-hourly production rate.
The stockpile A.I. is playing a VERY simple numbers game, much like a fake stock market (which I have done before -- part of the reason I suggested using sell “bids”). Additionally, I have provided a clear manner for player purchase price setting that moves with the market value of items.
And THAT leaves me at the end of my suggestion for an initial implementation for a crafting-based economy.
GOOD ECONOMY-RELATED CONTENT IDEAS
*** Craftable Ammo: Cost Overview
*** The Station Market
*** Ship Insurance (thanks to tkjode)
*** Research For Better Conversion Efficiencies And Production Times
*** Pausing And Canceling Research Projects
*** Speeding Up Research Projects
*** Facility Research Datapads (thanks to Lord Q and Phaserlight)
*** The Prototype Facility
*** Player Owned and Operated Stations
*** Destructible Stations
*** Station Insurance (thanks to tkjode)
*** Station Alliances
*** Mining Ionized Ore (thanks to Beolach)
Ideas' content removed to stress that they are additional possibilities only and TOTALLY unnecessary for the initial crafting system.
Also, many general thanks to LeberMac.
[EDIT: Re-updated Wed, Oct 19, 2005, 12:57pm.]
I am first going to outline my suggestion for an initial implementation of a crafting-based economy, then I will get to the important part -- What needs to change/happen FIRST for this, or anyone else’s crafting economy, to become an acceptable reality? After that I will toss on some icing of how some of the other ideas in this forum could exist in this economy AFTER it has first been implemented.
Here is the Excel spreadsheet that goes with this post (only values worksheet is unfinished ATM) http://max.cs.kzoo.edu/~srobbins/digital/VO_Economy_Parts.xls
*** Suggested Initial Setup:
Established stations around planets should have a built-in demand (from the planet’s populace) for Civilian Textiles, Food, Purified Water, and Medical Supplies.
Established stations should initially be equipped with the following:
Capital - All Modules with 1 of each processing/production facility
Research - ???
Mining - Refining Module with 3 of each processing facility
Commercial - Industrial Factory Module w/ 3 of each production facility
Barracks - Armory Module with 2 of each production facility and Shipyard Module
All established stations should begin with 2 weeks worth of resources required for existence, and 1 week of resources for running all additional (i.e. production) facilities non-stop.
Each “Capital” station should begin with 8 NPC convoys, which can go on trading and mining missions, 50 Station Guard craft, and 10 Marshal craft. Nation-border wormhole stations should have 6 NPC convoys and 200 Station Guard craft. All other stations should begin with 4 NPC convoys and 30 Station Guard craft.
Each station should start with 1,000,000 credits worth of each good, weapon, equipment, and ammunition it currently sells, and 2,000,000 credits worth of each ship it currently sells. This is at CURRENT PRICES!!!
Each nation-state faction should begin with 500 Strike Force craft and 3000 Aerna Seekers. Each minor faction should begin with 30 Strike Force craft and 200 Aerna Seekers per station it owns. If Aerna Seekers are actually Strike Force munitions, then they should instead be spawned freely. I am actually rather unclear on this point and would appreciate it very much if someone would enlighten me.
Each nation/faction should receive a tax income of 1,000,000 credits per station per week.
*** General Production Overview:
All trade goods -- Creature Comforts, Industrial Goods, Ores, Production Goods, Ship Components, Weapon Components -- are produced by facilities in station modules -- Armory, Industrial Factory, Refining. Each good is produced/processed by a unique facility type. Goods production/processing facilities all begin with a 50% conversion efficiency (CE) and a 1-hour per run production time. When a good requires multiple input components, the sum of the components is used as the total number of input components (* See Important Points at the bottom! *). For example, Synthetic Hydrocarbons require both Purified Aquean Ore and Purified Carbonic Ore. If I put 75 Purified Aquean Ore and 75 Purified Carbonic Ore into a brand new Synthetic Hydrocarbons Production Facility (100 CU / hour @ 50% CE), then I will get (75+75)*0.50 = 75 CU of Synthetic Hydrocarbons out in an hour.
Only trade goods have a CE factor into their production. Specific final products -- Weapons, Ammunition, Equipment, and Ships -- already have a specific formulation for their manufacture. Another way to look at this is that production facilities for specific final products begin with a 100% CE. Also, specific final products use ALL of their components in their production. For example, I can make ONE (1) Plasma Cannon MkII using 1 Basic Targeting Systems, 0.92 Cooling Systems, 1 Plasma Core, 1 Power Regulators, and 0.2 of Steel, for a total of 4.12 goods to produce 1 weapon.
Shipyards must be loaded with a blueprints datapad for the specific variation of the ship model it wants to construct (i.e. it is used up ONCE) if the variation is non-basic; the shipyard can the produce as many of that model as it wishes forever more.
I believe that it may be beneficial to keep all currently “Government Issued” equipment 100% free and in infinite supply across the galaxy -- just say that traders you do not see move them and the planets produce them.
*** Trade Goods Requirements Explanation(s):
Apicene Ore Si O (strange silicates and trapped stuff)
Aquean Ore H O
Carbonic Ore C, junk elements
Denic Ore Odd stuff
Ferric Ore Fe, junk elements
Heliocene Ore Fe Mg Ni (differentiated)
Ishik Ore N H Cl Na Ca K
Lanthanic Ore Unrefined radioactives
Pentric Ore Rare, intact complex chemicals
Pyronic Ore Alloy/doping stuff
Silicate Ore Si O (common silicates)
VanAzek Ore Ti Hg
Xithricite Ore Xith?
I am skipping the rest of the explanations for why I chose what I did as the required components for trade goods, but if you want them for kicks or whatever, just ask and they can be yours.
*** Weapon Cost Overview:
All weapons with “Good”, “Very Good”, or “Excellent” targeting, or homing ammunition require an Advanced Targeting System.
All weapons with “Okay” targeting or proximity detonation ammunition require a Basic Targeting System.
Weapons with “Little” or “None” targeting do not require a targeting system.
All weapons require 1 Power Regulator.
All weapons require 1 Cooling System for every 50 energy-per-second (EPS) usage/rating.
Each weapon requires a final component based on its type (from name and in-game description) and size. Ion Cores are used for “ion” and “*-tron core” weapons. Phase Arrays are used for “phase” weapons and the Charged Cannon. Plasma Cores are used for “plasma” weapons and the Charged Cannon. Large-port weapons require 2 of this component while small-port weapons only require 1 each.
All weapons require 1 Steel / 500 kg.
Weapons require a Stabilizing System if they mass at least 1000 kg and have an Advanced Targeting System, excluding homing missile launchers.
Important Note: All “Conventional” (i.e. ammunition-based) weapons are constructed and will be sold UNLOADED.
Until craftable ammo is implemented, I suggest leaving ammo untouched.
All weapons have a production credit cost based on their complexity/technology/level restrictions.
*** Equipment Cost Overview:
All mining beams require 1 Basic Targeting System.
Mining beams require 1 Steel if they are small-port and 2 if they are large-port.
Mining beams require 1 Plasma Core for every 1 Rate they have .
Mining beams require 1 Cooling System for every Rate/Heat they have.
Mining beams require 1 Power Regulator for every 3 other powered components.
Mining beams that specialize in any particular ore(s) require 1 Purified sample of each of those ores.
All batteries require 1 Steel
Batteries require a {1 Corrosive Chemicals, 1 Industrial Metals} pair for every 6000 rating they possess. Their battery rating is determined by the product of their capacity and charge rate (capacity * charge rate = rating).
Fast Charge and Ultra Charge batteries also require 1 Catalysts to keep their recharge rate so high.
All repair modules each require 1 Advanced Targeting System, 1 Power Regulator, and 3 Steel.
All mineral Scanners each require 1 Advanced Targeting System.
All equipment has a production credit cost based on its complexity/technology/level restrictions.
*** Ship Cost Overview:
All non-capital ships require 1 Consumer Electronics, 1 Oxygen Recycling System, and 0.25 Vismetal for the cockpit and life-support system.
All ships require 1 XiRite Alloy, and 1 Steel for every 1000 hull hit points.
All ships require 1 Plasteel for every 1000 hull hit points above 1.5 times the mass.
All ships require 1 Simple Plastics for every 10 cargo space.
All ships require 1 Basic Targeting System if they have weapons ports.
All ships require 1 Advanced Targeting System for every 2 weapons they have above 1 (round down.
All ships require 1 Electronic Components for every small port and 3 each for every large port.
All ships require 1 NanoPigments for every 5000kg of mass.
All ships require 1 Plasma Core and 1 Silksteel for every 100N of thrust.
All ships require 1 Industrial Metals and 1 Ion Core for ever 5 m/s max speed over 40 m/s.
All ships require 1 Stabilizing System for every 1Nm of spin torque above 5Nm, and an additional 1 Stabilizing System for every 1Nm above 10Nm.
All ships also require 1 fewer than an additional 1 Plasma Core for every 50m/s turbo speed above top cruising speed PLUS an additional 1 Plasma Core for every 20m/s turbo above 100 m/s over top speed.
All ships require 1 Cooling System and 1 Inert Chemicals for every 5m/s turbo speed above 50m/s.
All ships require 1 Power Regulators for every 3 other high-power components (Advanced Targeting Systems, Cooling Systems, Ion Core, Plasma Core, Stabilizing Systems).
All ships have an assembly cost related to their size-complexity and their level of technology. This cost formula uses the total number of processing steps all of a ship’s components required (STEPS), how much the ship’s hull hit points exceed 1.5 times its mass (HP/Mass-1.5 = ARMOR), and the ship’s thrust divided by mass divided by 100 (Nm/Kg/100 = ENGINE):
((STEPS ^5)/1000000000)*((ARMOR +1)^2)*(((ENGINE -3)^2)/5+1).
*** How The Stockpile A.I. Should Operate
Each day at midnight GMT, the Stockpile A.I. for each faction should collect all sell bids from all stations. It should then attempt to spend 1/7 of its treasury (which is increased daily from station operations and weekly from tax income). If the A.I. can purchase all bids for ≤ 1/7 its treasury, then it will do so. If it cannot, then it will first attempt to purchase anything that it is low on (i.e. inventory has dropped below starting levels). The A.I. will next attempt to purchase a uniform distribution of items while preferring items priced favorably compared to an expected price based on the average number of refining/processing/production steps its components require and the rarity of the initial ores.
Players should be able to purchase items from stations for 110% of the average price the Stockpile A.I. paid for the item. For example, the A.I. buys 5 cannons at 500cr and 5 cannons at 1000cr. The average price is 750cr, so players may buy up to 10 cannons for 825cr. If a player buys 5 cannons and the A.I. then buys 5 more cannons at 1250cr, the new average price will be 1000cr and players will have to pony up 1100cr to buy one.
Additionally, low license level item (weapons, equipment, ship) prices should be subsidized. All currently “Government Issued” stuff should stay 100% free for everyone. Players whose highest license level is 3 or less may purchase items whose highest license level requirement is 0 for 5% of the average price the Stockpile A.I. paid for the item. Players whose highest license level is 4 or less may purchase items whose highest license level requirement is 1 for 20% of the average acquisition price. Players whose highest license level is 4 or less may purchase items whose highest license level requirement is 2 for 35% of the average acquisition price. Players whose highest license level is 5 or less may purchase items whose highest license level requirement is 3 for 50% of the average acquisition price. To discourage farming with a newbie or an alternate character, discounted items should only be purchasable while the player has fewer than 100,000 credits, and newbie players should perhaps have a limited ability to transfer credits to someone else. There are NO discounts available at non-nation-state (Serco, Itani, UIT) stations. NO faction-aligned item or badge-requiring item is ever subsidized.
Mined ore is valued at 7/10 its experience value cubed (0.7*xp)^3. Premium Heliocene, since it is mined with one level of refinement, is valued as though it had been refined once. However, as a component, Premium Heliocene has no processing steps.
Refined ores are valued at their mined/previous value, divided by 0.8 minus 0.01 for every step of refinement they have been through (MineValue/(0.8-(0.01*RefinementSteps))).
All other/subsequent goods are valued at the average value of their components divided by 0.9 minus 0.01 times the average number of processing steps their components have been through (AvgCompValue/(0.9-(0.01*AvgCompRefinementSteps))).
*** *** NOW FOR THE IMPORTANT PART *** ***
POINT 1) NPC defenses / combat effectiveness MUST be increased to at least between 75%-90% of player defenses / combat effectiveness. Otherwise, all NPC convoys will be in danger of being quickly overrun and the whole universe has a good chance at looking like post-WWII Europe. This is ESPECIALLY, more than doubly true if stations are ever made destructible.
POINT 2) NPC convoys have to work together better, and the young whipper-snappers need to learn them well ‘bout a good hard day’s ‘roid farming.
POINT 3) Advanced, complicated items (i.e. SHIPS) are going to suddenly be FAR more expensive than they are now unless ... um... So, according to this thread: http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/11768 , that is a good thing, so no worries! :) Also, newbies get subsidies.
POINT 4) With more expensive items that players can and will lose, offering some form of insurance may be important.
POINT 5) For multiple-component goods, should good production use the sum of the CU of the input components, or the number of sets of components when determining how many CU of product is produced?
POINT 6) What can established research stations start with that is reasonable?
*** Final Overview Of My Suggestion -OR- What I See As The Ramifications Of My Suggestion
First, here are what I think are the positive points of my suggestion:
Ammunition does not need to be produced or transported yet.
Only about 17 new goods need to be added.
I only want to deprecate 1 good (“Heliocene Ore”), if it even exists. It can be left in for kicks though, just no one can produce it and you cannot mine it with my system.
Most of the current goods (and the new ones) can be created and have a final use/destination, thus do not need to be deprecated.
Stations, especially those around planets, have a constant demand to help suck materials out of the universe that are not used in weapons or ships.
This initial economy can work just FINE without:
- Changing ammo at all.
- Adding any form of insurance.
- Research of any description.
- Datapads of any description.
- Working NPC traders.
- Working NPC miners.
- Adding anything dynamic to existing stations.
- Adjustable/customizable equipment of any sort.
- Mini-games of any sort.
The suggestion can work without NPC traders and miners because, in the beginning (I think we all hope those exist at some point in the future) each faction can have a universal inventory from which any station may take parts (which is essentially abstracted NPC traders) and stations, or the universal inventory, can simply be given an income rate of various ores (which is essentially abstracted NPC miners), just like the Stockpile A.I. receives a tax income each week.
This is not to say that any of the above are bad per se, just that they are additions to a bare-minimum crafting-based economy. I will even throw out that you could implement sliders-constructed items by allowing players to tweak the input component ratios in order to get items with different statistics.
Second, here are what I think are the negative points of my suggestion:
It requires that 17 new goods be added to the universe.
“Planet” demand will need to be tweaked until a balance is found between player-supply and planet-demand unless NPCs are operating well.
A system of modular stations will need to be coded.
Existing stations will need to be re-written as having modules and facilities.
Stations will need to keep track of limited stockpiles of goods, items, and ships.
A crafting table in the stations database will need to be created and setup to operate in an efficient manner.
Factions will have to keep track of their NPC vessels.
The entire economy could, theoretically, collapse under the constant pressure of war.
A stockpile A.I. will need to be written.
A cost database for all goods, items, and ships will need to be created.
See important points #1, #2, #4, and #6.
However, I am reasonably certain that ANY crafting-based economic system that might be implemented will run into many of the same “problems”. The following is why I believe that my suggestion is a RELATIVELY simple one compared to the myriad possible alternatives.
By breaking stations down into modules and facilities, I have attempted to provide a simple object-oriented approach to determining what established stations can do AND provide a clear path to adding player-owned stations in the future (which has been mentioned by the Devs before). If Vendetta is not using an object-oriented pardigm (which would really surprise me), then I am TERRIBLY sorry and all the suggestions contained here-in should be looked at with a bucket of salt. Also, I was attempting to only use things I am fairly confident I could program in C++. I know the Devs are using LISP somewhat, but I do not know to what extent. Again, if they are only using LISP and any of this is significantly harder using that language, then I am TERRIBLY sorry. I, unfortunately, do not have much experience with LISP; my A.I. professors kept having us use MatLab and Python...
The initial setup I suggested is intended to provide ample resources to the universe so that fighting-oriented players may happily continue without worrying about supply/demand in the short-term (~1 month). Please comment if you think stations need more beginning resources in order to keep the universe running for a month pretending that NO more resources are coming into the system. This way, there would be plenty of time on the production server to modify planet-station output/demand according to actual throughput figures.
A simple (just names and numbers) station database table could easily list all the stations in the universe and identify their locations, make-up (modules and facilities), and their inventory (e.g. how many of each ship and item they have).
A crafting table in the same database could then keep track of each station’s production orders: Station - Item - Quantity - Time Finished. This is because all production orders must be supplied and paid for entirely up front. Also, adding and removing orders from the table is equally hassle-free. Each 15 minutes, the system simply needs to remove all orders whose Time Finished is before the current time and place the Quantity of Item into the appropriate Station. To add an entry, check for any orders before the current entry (same station, same item), figure the number of production quarter-hours they will take in total plus the number of production quarter-hours the new order will take, and divide the sum by the station’s quarter-hourly production rate.
The stockpile A.I. is playing a VERY simple numbers game, much like a fake stock market (which I have done before -- part of the reason I suggested using sell “bids”). Additionally, I have provided a clear manner for player purchase price setting that moves with the market value of items.
And THAT leaves me at the end of my suggestion for an initial implementation for a crafting-based economy.
GOOD ECONOMY-RELATED CONTENT IDEAS
*** Craftable Ammo: Cost Overview
*** The Station Market
*** Ship Insurance (thanks to tkjode)
*** Research For Better Conversion Efficiencies And Production Times
*** Pausing And Canceling Research Projects
*** Speeding Up Research Projects
*** Facility Research Datapads (thanks to Lord Q and Phaserlight)
*** The Prototype Facility
*** Player Owned and Operated Stations
*** Destructible Stations
*** Station Insurance (thanks to tkjode)
*** Station Alliances
*** Mining Ionized Ore (thanks to Beolach)
Ideas' content removed to stress that they are additional possibilities only and TOTALLY unnecessary for the initial crafting system.
Also, many general thanks to LeberMac.
I am not exactly against the slider idea, I just think that implementing and balancing it would be relatively difficult (care to be more specific?) whereas I am sure that my suggestion is rather simple/easy.
You're sure your suggestion is rather simple and easy? Are you a programmer? Do you have any experience designing MMO's? Be careful with blanket statements like this. Not only are you introducing several entirely new concepts such as component-based station building and research, it doesn't seem like you've really thought through all the ramifications of your suggestion.
For example, why on earth would anyone spend 10 million credits and 20 hours to increase refining effeciency of aqueous ore by 1% when the same effect could be achieved by having each moth take an extra 3 seconds per run to mine 101 ore instead of 100? Which is a safer bet... spending 1 year and 1.2 trillion credits on something that could be negated in a single night by a determined group of players, or having your moths mine 140 ore instead of 100? As per your example the net result would be the same in both cases.
Furthermore, what incentive do players have to research and craft in this manner? If spending 1 year on research meant I could create a gauss cannon that was 40% better than other gauss cannons, I could almost see it being worth the time and credits, but the risk of having your station destroyed at 3AM one night while you're asleep would still be too great. As it is, you're not even creating anything new, just the same weapons more effeciently. Where is the fun in that? There are easier ways to earn credits.
I'm not meaning to be overly harsh, just challenging you to take a critical look at your own suggestion.
You're sure your suggestion is rather simple and easy? Are you a programmer? Do you have any experience designing MMO's? Be careful with blanket statements like this. Not only are you introducing several entirely new concepts such as component-based station building and research, it doesn't seem like you've really thought through all the ramifications of your suggestion.
For example, why on earth would anyone spend 10 million credits and 20 hours to increase refining effeciency of aqueous ore by 1% when the same effect could be achieved by having each moth take an extra 3 seconds per run to mine 101 ore instead of 100? Which is a safer bet... spending 1 year and 1.2 trillion credits on something that could be negated in a single night by a determined group of players, or having your moths mine 140 ore instead of 100? As per your example the net result would be the same in both cases.
Furthermore, what incentive do players have to research and craft in this manner? If spending 1 year on research meant I could create a gauss cannon that was 40% better than other gauss cannons, I could almost see it being worth the time and credits, but the risk of having your station destroyed at 3AM one night while you're asleep would still be too great. As it is, you're not even creating anything new, just the same weapons more effeciently. Where is the fun in that? There are easier ways to earn credits.
I'm not meaning to be overly harsh, just challenging you to take a critical look at your own suggestion.
[Edit: Sat, Oct. 8, 2005, 9:21am -- I have condensed a couple of my posts and updated the full suggestion post.]
Yes, I am a programmer, and have studied economics. No, I have not had the opportunity to work with MMO code. Research is strictly secondary to implementing the crafting system. If efficiency and production time research are going to be chucked, I suggest starting all facilities at the maximum efficiency I would have allowed. I am not sure about the time, maybe just leave that alone.
As my research suggestion stands (and remember that it is STRICTLY after the crafting system is implemented). I expect players would do the initial research (first 6-16 levels) sort of as a money sink. Also, I would expect that station insurance (which HAS to be available if stations are destructible) should replace lost datapads/research information. ... Oops, I forgot to put in that... Well, station insurance has been edit-added and I hav put it at the end of this post.
Moving on, what incentive do players have to mine asteroids? The initial crafting system will simply be another way to make money. Players will engage in research projects in order to make more money, or to undersell a competitor. Just because you, Phaserlight, do not think a particular in-game activity is fun does not mean that no one will like it. On the other hand, the fact that some people might not like it is exactly why there is a suggestions forum...
Again, I note that I have edited my suggestion post to be consistent with my updated spreadsheet. Now it is all done!!! :)
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/11406?page=8#141647
http://max.cs.kzoo.edu/~srobbins/digital/VO_Economy_Parts.xls
Yes, I am a programmer, and have studied economics. No, I have not had the opportunity to work with MMO code. Research is strictly secondary to implementing the crafting system. If efficiency and production time research are going to be chucked, I suggest starting all facilities at the maximum efficiency I would have allowed. I am not sure about the time, maybe just leave that alone.
As my research suggestion stands (and remember that it is STRICTLY after the crafting system is implemented). I expect players would do the initial research (first 6-16 levels) sort of as a money sink. Also, I would expect that station insurance (which HAS to be available if stations are destructible) should replace lost datapads/research information. ... Oops, I forgot to put in that... Well, station insurance has been edit-added and I hav put it at the end of this post.
Moving on, what incentive do players have to mine asteroids? The initial crafting system will simply be another way to make money. Players will engage in research projects in order to make more money, or to undersell a competitor. Just because you, Phaserlight, do not think a particular in-game activity is fun does not mean that no one will like it. On the other hand, the fact that some people might not like it is exactly why there is a suggestions forum...
Again, I note that I have edited my suggestion post to be consistent with my updated spreadsheet. Now it is all done!!! :)
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/11406?page=8#141647
http://max.cs.kzoo.edu/~srobbins/digital/VO_Economy_Parts.xls
GAH. My eyes hurt. I'll wait for Incarnate or a dev to comment on all this before I put any more work in thinking about this...
Incarnate, I wish to apologize as it seems I never actually responded to YOUR original post... Well, here it is now:
As you may see, I completely agree "Stations contain manufacturing centers which are skilled in different areas of manufacturing". However, I very much disagree that there should be a TYPE of station. I would like to see stations progress the same way that characters may progress -- in whatever direction the player feels like. One of the big draws of Vendetta Online, at least for me, is that I did not have to decide whether I was a pirate or a miner or a ... etc. I.e. I did not have to put my character into a box and THAT is what the character would turn out to be. If I wanted to and had the time to spend, I could do anything! However, this is part of the reason that the station and research costs are so high. I agree there should be some kind of a trade-off, I just really do not want the trade-off to be a built-in forced limitation. This way, a player station could choose to specialize in ALL of the steps in making, say, a Neutron Blaster Mk III.
I agree that (almost?) everything should, eventually, be craftable. I agree that manufacturing centers should require payment and delivery of initial component resources prior to beginning production, and that NPC stations should charge for this conversion service. I do not think that PC stations should be forced to charge for this service, nor that they should bear a direct credit operating cost since the player already spent a huge amount of credits and resources to buy/create capital (the station and facilities) and is paying indirectly through the employment of NPC station workers.
I think that the manufacture of items should require time in order to limit throughput into the economy and to give a sense of realism. Additionally, this would give players an additional reason to get stations once they are able to. However, I understand and can appreciate how much easier it would be to implement without a time requirement. Either way, facility use should definitely be limited by faction standing.
I agree that item construction/processing should be successful 100% of the time. I really do not want items with a quality level for two reason: 1] that requires another number for EVERY ITEM IN THE GAME which the servers must keep track of; 2] if the difference in quality is insignificant (+5 damage) then the system will be burdened by additional complexity and no one will care, otherwise if the difference is significant (+200 damage) then anyone wishing to have a fair chance at PvP will HAVE to have the best equipment available or be at a significant disadvantage. I think it is better to simply add some additional equipment at the higher levels rather than to simply multiply the number of weapon choices (>90% of which will be BAD). Also, as far as trade goods with quality are concerned, who really needs/wants a CU of Purified Water that is 5% better? The only possible reason I see is if it affected a final finished product, which brings me straight back to my first two reasons.
If you want to add better items into the game, I suggest that is should be done by creating a duplicate of an existing one (e.g. Ion Blaster), and carefully (i.e. secretly/no hubbub) give a couple stations the plans for it.
I agree with eventual player-owned-and-operated stations which are upgradeable. Please see my player controllable stations idea/note for this.
I would like to see the “creation of new items by users in some way” be done with research in player controlled stations. I am not sure how, for a new item, the research itself should be done, but please take a peek at my Prototyping Facility idea. I definitely agree that the failure method of new item creation is very boring and not fun.
We all appreciate the effort Guild Software is putting into this game, and I am VERY pleased with how much you listen to the player base. Thank you very much.
As you may see, I completely agree "Stations contain manufacturing centers which are skilled in different areas of manufacturing". However, I very much disagree that there should be a TYPE of station. I would like to see stations progress the same way that characters may progress -- in whatever direction the player feels like. One of the big draws of Vendetta Online, at least for me, is that I did not have to decide whether I was a pirate or a miner or a ... etc. I.e. I did not have to put my character into a box and THAT is what the character would turn out to be. If I wanted to and had the time to spend, I could do anything! However, this is part of the reason that the station and research costs are so high. I agree there should be some kind of a trade-off, I just really do not want the trade-off to be a built-in forced limitation. This way, a player station could choose to specialize in ALL of the steps in making, say, a Neutron Blaster Mk III.
I agree that (almost?) everything should, eventually, be craftable. I agree that manufacturing centers should require payment and delivery of initial component resources prior to beginning production, and that NPC stations should charge for this conversion service. I do not think that PC stations should be forced to charge for this service, nor that they should bear a direct credit operating cost since the player already spent a huge amount of credits and resources to buy/create capital (the station and facilities) and is paying indirectly through the employment of NPC station workers.
I think that the manufacture of items should require time in order to limit throughput into the economy and to give a sense of realism. Additionally, this would give players an additional reason to get stations once they are able to. However, I understand and can appreciate how much easier it would be to implement without a time requirement. Either way, facility use should definitely be limited by faction standing.
I agree that item construction/processing should be successful 100% of the time. I really do not want items with a quality level for two reason: 1] that requires another number for EVERY ITEM IN THE GAME which the servers must keep track of; 2] if the difference in quality is insignificant (+5 damage) then the system will be burdened by additional complexity and no one will care, otherwise if the difference is significant (+200 damage) then anyone wishing to have a fair chance at PvP will HAVE to have the best equipment available or be at a significant disadvantage. I think it is better to simply add some additional equipment at the higher levels rather than to simply multiply the number of weapon choices (>90% of which will be BAD). Also, as far as trade goods with quality are concerned, who really needs/wants a CU of Purified Water that is 5% better? The only possible reason I see is if it affected a final finished product, which brings me straight back to my first two reasons.
If you want to add better items into the game, I suggest that is should be done by creating a duplicate of an existing one (e.g. Ion Blaster), and carefully (i.e. secretly/no hubbub) give a couple stations the plans for it.
I agree with eventual player-owned-and-operated stations which are upgradeable. Please see my player controllable stations idea/note for this.
I would like to see the “creation of new items by users in some way” be done with research in player controlled stations. I am not sure how, for a new item, the research itself should be done, but please take a peek at my Prototyping Facility idea. I definitely agree that the failure method of new item creation is very boring and not fun.
We all appreciate the effort Guild Software is putting into this game, and I am VERY pleased with how much you listen to the player base. Thank you very much.
*Bump*
Also, I just found EVE Online and have been reading/talking about it. I really like a number of factors about it. LeberMac - is that what you meant by rentable station space? Assuming so, then I completely agree with having rentable station space inside essentially unlimited space, space stations.
Also, I just found EVE Online and have been reading/talking about it. I really like a number of factors about it. LeberMac - is that what you meant by rentable station space? Assuming so, then I completely agree with having rentable station space inside essentially unlimited space, space stations.
O-Mi-Gawd you bumped this thing.
I've never played EVE, but I was just thinking that renting space would be the way to go. You don't need to worry about building your own station, you can just have a little place that you use at a pre-existing station.
Of course, having station limits would be more realistic, but would require stations that can build themselves up, with the actual SIZE of the station increasing. The outside "look" would change. And how would the station build stuff and where? That would require a station AI.
Just having stations be infinite boxes where players rent space is easier in the short term.
I've never played EVE, but I was just thinking that renting space would be the way to go. You don't need to worry about building your own station, you can just have a little place that you use at a pre-existing station.
Of course, having station limits would be more realistic, but would require stations that can build themselves up, with the actual SIZE of the station increasing. The outside "look" would change. And how would the station build stuff and where? That would require a station AI.
Just having stations be infinite boxes where players rent space is easier in the short term.
Rented Space, ah good point like a business to sell your items.
One question, on the point of refining and manufacture just has terminals in place that either has access to your cargo bay or storage. The terminals will charge a small fee on refining <ore’s, gases> or constructing items. Blue printing is achieved in reverse, you have an item in your cargo hold or storage that when you access the dismantler it breaks down of the items used in its construction. These items may also be able to broken down into subordinate components<ores, gases, crystals>.
On the items one could make they are either vendor bought or dropped, dependent on the creators lvl it adds +/- to power use, weapon speed<rate of fire,reload>, Aim.
One question, on the point of refining and manufacture just has terminals in place that either has access to your cargo bay or storage. The terminals will charge a small fee on refining <ore’s, gases> or constructing items. Blue printing is achieved in reverse, you have an item in your cargo hold or storage that when you access the dismantler it breaks down of the items used in its construction. These items may also be able to broken down into subordinate components<ores, gases, crystals>.
On the items one could make they are either vendor bought or dropped, dependent on the creators lvl it adds +/- to power use, weapon speed<rate of fire,reload>, Aim.