Economy Update 2 - Proposed Improvements

The original economy update introduced a universal currency, but in practice most players rarely use it. Earning resources directly is usually easier than buying them, shops have limited purpose, and pre-made ships are overpriced or poorly designed. Outside of purchasing Safe Zone chips, credits have very little meaningful use leading many players to accumulate hundreds of millions they never spend.

To address this, I propose Economy Update 2, focused on creating a functioning player-driven economy, meaningful trade, and actual uses for currency.

1. Player Ship Buying & Selling System

Introduce a new station-based interface similar to a hologram projection table.

How the Ship Shop Works

The new hologram projection table would:

• Display a hologram of the ship being previewed
• Allow players to buy ships from the table
• Support player-built ships instead of low quality developer-made ones

This provides a familiar and immersive way to browse and purchase ships.

How “In Memory” Works

When a player sells a ship through this system:

• The ship is removed from the world
• Stored digitally (“in memory”) as a ship listing in the shop
• Consumes: No PCU No physical space No server resources

This allows for a limitless catalog without clutter or lag.

Buying Player Ships

When a player purchases a ship:

• It is pulled from the station’s “memory”
• Spawned into the world near the station
• Ownership is transferred to the buyer

This creates a genuine, functional ship marketplace.

Requirements to List a Ship

To sell a ship:

• Seller must own every block
• Cargo must be empty
• Ship must be under 20k PCU
• No projections, incomplete blocks, or subgrids

This prevents abuse and maintains consistency.

2. Scrap Selling Option

Players may sell ships as scrap instead of listing them:

• The game calculates the components used to build the ship
• The seller receives 75% of the base shop value of those components

This gives unused or captured ships meaningful resale value.

3. Station Roles, Inventories, and Bounties

Stations should have consistent, role-based inventories and missions:

Welders

• Buy/sell components
• Offer welding/construction missions

Miners

• Buy/sell ore
• Mining or refining missions

Military Stations

• Buy/sell ammunition
• Combat missions

Research Stations

• Missions for retrieving Factotum parts or killing Factotum ships.
• Sell safe zone chips.

Pirate Stations

• Buy/sell ammo
• Missions targeting non-pirate NPC encounters
  

Faction-Based Bounties

Stations should issue bounties based on standings:

• Players with negative standing to that faction who have grids in game will have bounties placed on them
• Players with positive standing with space pirates who have grids in game will have bounties placed against them

This brings meaningful consequences for faction relationships.

4. Dynamic Market Supply & Pricing

Stations share an effectively unlimited internal storage with same type stations:

• Prices drop if players sell large quantities
• Prices rise when resources are scarce

Example:

Stone is 10 credits → player sells 1,000,000 → price drops to 1 credit.

This creates:

• Real supply & demand
• Profitable trade
• Incentives for mining, selling, and buying
  

5. NPC Station Defenses & Reputation Logic

To stop camping and abuse:

• Stations should attack players with negative standings
• Players should only enter the safe bubble if they are neutral or better

Faction standing becomes meaningful and prevents pirate camping.

6. New System: Grid Bounty Missions

Currently, dying as a character is meaningless.

Losing a grid is the real penalty in Space Engineers.

This system provides real consequences and real gameplay:

How Grid Bounties WorkIf a player has bad standing with a faction:

• That faction can issue a bounty on the player’s grid, not the player
• Grids persist even when players are offline
• This avoids “offline character” issues entirely

Mission Objective

• Destroy or remove the targeted grid from the world
• Any outcome where the grid ceases to exist counts: Destroyed Captured and ground down Deleted by game mechanics

Time Limit

• 24 hours to complete the mission

Reward

• 50% of the grid’s component value
• Larger grids = larger payouts

This creates real stakes, real consequences, and rewarding gameplay loops.

Summary

Economy Update 2 enhances the game by adding:

• A new hologram-projection ship marketplace
• Player-created ships for sale
• Scrap selling
• Role-based station trade & missions
• Dynamic economy with supply and demand
• Station security tied to faction standings
• Grid Bounty Missions, creating real risk and meaningful consequences

These changes would turn the economy from a nearly unused feature into a deep, interactive, player-driven system that adds long-term gameplay and purpose.

Reputation Loop

Introduce an interconnected reputation cycle between the major factions:

Miners → Welders → Military → Research → Miners (cycle repeats)

• Helping Miners increases standing with Welders
• Helping Welders increases standing with Military
• Helping Military increases standing with Research
• Helping Research increases standing with Miners

This creates a gameplay loop where working with one faction subtly boosts another, encouraging players to rotate mission types.

Pirates in the Reputation System

• Anything that increases Pirate standing lowers standings with all other factions
• Anything done against Pirates slightly increases standings with all factions

Pirate Safe Zone Restriction

• Space Pirates stations do not have access to Safe Zone chips
• Players who choose the pirate lifestyle cannot easily run safe zones
• This preserves risk and prevents grief-proof pirate bases

This system finally makes reputation meaningful and dynamic.

Persistent Faction Standings & UI Improvements

Currently, players can join and leave player factions to reset NPC standings, which undermines the entire purpose of any future bounty or reputation system. This loophole allows players to instantly escape consequences simply by changing factions.

To prevent this, faction standings should be persistent and independent of faction membership.

Persistent Reputation Storage

• A player’s standings with each faction should be saved directly in the Sandbox.sbc file
• Leaving or joining any player faction should not reset NPC reputation
• Reputation should only change through gameplay actions (missions, combat, trade, etc.)

This ensures that faction behavior, bounties, hostile responses, and access restrictions all remain consistent and meaningful.

Reputation UI Panel

A dedicated UI panel should be added to clearly show a player's standings with:

• Miners
• Welders
• Military
• Research
• Pirates

This would be especially useful when recruiting players into a faction, since leaders could immediately see whether a potential member:

• Has hostile standings with peaceful factions
• Is aligned with pirates
• Is known for aggression
• Has bounties likely to cause trouble

This transparency makes faction management easier and reduces abuse.