I like that kettle.
Based on real-time pirates, and attacks, whether npc or players, there should be a risk factor associated with each system. I find that really interesting actually, because it adds depth to, "hmm where the hell are these charges coming from at this station?" to "ohhhh because sedina is dangerous it costs a hell of a lot more to ship shit through there."
Makes sense from a station funding standpoint. I'm sure there will be lazy people out there who don't mind stimulating the economy in some small way.

Also, I know this might be off topic, but, what if stations could grow according to their monetary ability. Obviously size has no real use in vendetta station wise, but it would be cool to be there when a station was just starting out, and then have it be huge like a year later.

Also I feel like there needs to be "more to do" at a bigger station. Like certain abilities that you can only do from the main capital system stations of each nation. I feel like there should be some kind of trade center or something there. Not only should trade be available from player to player, but maybe some kind of an auction system. The P2P trade menu should be available everywhere, at any station. But the auction menu should be available at your home nation's capital. It should give those areas more traffic to say the least.

AND.....
I still feel like there should be some way to invest in companies/factions/even nations themselves! Not only should it prove interesting, but if the nations actually use that money according to what the nation needs, that would be incredible.

pakettle that would be a sound suggestion if sedina didn't have b8 in it where a whole bunch of "attacks" happen per day but are 99 percent consensual. it would be better if it was attacks on npc convoys

And yet I doubt any here would disagree that a trip through B8 is extremely dangerous. As the only sector that would be skewed by the pvp and the fact that the skew is in the right direction I dont see it as a serious fault but If the devs wished they could just count the npc deaths....

I would disagree. I have made trips through Sedina B-8 with Centaurs, Atlases, at times even Behemoths full of delicious goods (often expensive weaponry). I very rarely am engaged by pirates.

You roll the dice and you take your chances. I too have run more then a few ships through sedina and lost a few in the process....

If there is enough trade moving through Grey, I am sure more pirates will be around to make it more dangerous than it currently is (which is not very dangerous at all, though there have been a few rumblings from the rats recently which seem somewhat promising...)

What really needs to happen for the economy is, Make Grey Space Appealing. I feel there should be more events in Grey than anywhere else. Grey is the Center and meeting point of all the nations, and most players tend to be there anyway, why not spice it up a bit?

In my
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/15425?page=3

I am agreeing with Spedy, on a topic of "Grey Currency"

no no NO grey is not a meeting point for nations its supposed to be a scary place with backdoor meetings that no one knows about not some fucking carnival for 13 pos carebears

Insofar as grey space is a no man's land, it is the primary location for any diplomatic meeting to take place, and it will be more so when the FF redux is implemented.

I'm not in favor of a 'grey currency', though.

Making grey space appealing is a must.
Rare ores. Exotic trade items. Illegal tech widgets. Special highly rewarding missions.
Anything that can attract interest of just about any player in VO enough to try and venture there in spite of danger.

P.S.
Don't blame peytros for his comments. In his case "Elvis has left the building" long time ago.

i have no problem with grey being the most appealing place to go and having all the end game stuff there as long as people aren't expecting it to be all hugs and kisses like nation space is

Hmm i think to save the game essentially Gray needs to be either enlarged or made more appealing.

Enlarging of Grayspace:
Since we already have too many systems to support the current player base I propose we alter what is already in place.

Since Itani Space is the largest swath of space I propose we reduce the amount of systems that are under itani control. This isn't biased against Itanis.. its just that there is no need for 1/3 of the systems within the game to be under itani control and less than 30% of the systems dangerous pirate flyable areas. So this is what I propose:

Jallik turns gray, turrets removed from Edras/Jallik wormhole. Wormhole from Verasi moved to connect to newly gray Jallik which will create a larger deeper gray space region.

Stations in Jallik either moved to Itani space or turned into minor faction stations, perhaps even some minor faction stations spread into empty edras/ pelatus region. This will add at least two new unguarded/unturreted wormholes to the game. As we all know wormholes are where trade flows in and out therefore where the pirates would hunt.

Ukari L2 station (preferably) moved or turned into non UIT nationalist station. This will free up the Ukari L2 wormhole for the same purpose.

Helios B7 station also should be moved either into Serco space or turned into another minor faction station. Either way, it should be moved.

Altogether this would free up 4 wormholes, turn one system gray. And finally balance the game out instead of having excessive areas of nation space where traders can trade freely without too much concern. Gray space is an area where everyone can go, which is why there should be more of it..

I'll leave off this post with some statistics:
All Space: 30 systems 112 stations
Itani Space: 30% of the space 35/112 stations = 31.25% of stations
Serco Space: 23.33% of space 29/112 stations = 25.89% of stations
UIT Space: 16.66% of space 8 nationalist stations. Stations protected behind UIT turret defenses: 30/112 stations = 26.79%
Grayspace: 26.66% of space, stations in gray space 20/112 stations = 17.85%.

Non-nationalist stations in grayspace 18/112 = 16.01%

Think the game is a bit lopsided yet?

stamp of approval for yuutuu1 also inc said greyspace is getting bigger with new systems also.

Anything added isn't necessarily better, a well "trafficked" area is what we really want. Say the systems in grey increase, well that's not a great thing. Active players are diluted as it is. We need to solidify common trade routes in order to get more action from pirates, and more risky trading, but not without a higher reward...

Adding more systems probably won't solve anything, unless these new systems are the main attraction of the galaxy...

thats why I'm suggesting we modify what's in place. Trade is dependent on stations. Since gray has the least amount of stations in comparison to anywhere else, it would only make sense that there would be more stations in gray to create more trade routes and more escorts...

the profits for Nation-Deep Gray seem pretty good.
the intarnational profits might be a bit high.

Arise! I command thee!

I'm sorry to resurrect the discussion, but there was one point that hasn't been raised regarding the elasticity of prices for the good trade routes and I wasn't playing the game when this thread started. That is this: has no one considered the idea of trade guilds warring with each other? A highly elastic commodity or set of commodities with a massive payoffs could really gear this sort of thing up.

Imagine, there's an awesome 40k cr/cu route for all of 300-400 cu worth of goods. after that it quickly tanks to 5k cr/cu or whatever after the next 600. Numbers don't quite matter as it's an example. Guild A finds it and has a good time with it for a bit. Then competition comes in and one day. The guild comes strolling in to find their beautiful profits curtailed because of some up-start trading guild or independents who got lucky.

What's to stop either guild from declaring war, even hiring mercenaries to squat the route for them or making exclusive deals with local pirates for trading rights?

Elastic pricing makes traders have to compete with each other more. That's end-game player interaction gold, if you ask me.

The other point had to do with distribution of resources. Basically, put the good and rare roid fields out in deep grey and make everything in nation space demand the ore. That solves the return trip problem very easily for traders: carry finished goods in, bring rare ores back out. It gets miners out in grey more and gives them more visibility in the game.

Gah. Did you not read this whole thing? Or pay any attention to what the devs are saying about the universe redux at all?
They ARE going to move all the good ores to grey.

As to your first point, we dont really have the players to make that much fun. Lots of viable, 'tankable' routes, but not as many traders.

We've had alot of elastic pricing stuff before. See luxury goods trading and the like. We just don;t have the player numbers to force that kind of interaction regularly.

I did read the whole thread... well, maybe I started skimming more than reading after a certain point. It's 7 pages long! Anyways, the main point was that it seemed to me that several people were most worried about tanked routes somehow not making it worth their while. The minerals were an afterthought.

At the same time, though, I think your point of not having the player base to support a highly elastic economy, at least on certain items, is short sighted. If people knew that they needed to compete in this game then it would be more of the "Field of Dreams" situation: if you build it, they will come.

Here's what I see: people wait for the pirates to log off, grab their moths and start running through grey and shout about how great it is all over 100. Traders don't compete with each other, right now, *but they seem to be mainly online together* because of the pirate schedules. If you give them something to have to compete with each other on, then I think it'll add to the challenge and fun in the game and avoid the whole, "well... I have this route that gets me 10 million a night... when do cap ships get implemented again?" sort of attitude that seems rather prevalent. Instead, people will have to think about how they can beat the next guy at making the limited profits that are available at the time they're logged in.

Besides, with the statistical data available on when players are online and when they aren't, I can easily imagine some timers being set for how long it takes the routes to "un-tank" such that they coincide with the most interesting groups being online at the same time. Don't have players to do it? spawn an NPC voy to rebalance after a certain profit point is met. The main point is that elastic prices makes the profit more scarce forcing more competition and that's how you let the traders PvP without them picking up blasters themselves.