Failure of economics
Since the beginning of the survival scenario I have wondered about the rewards for the various contracts, especially the bulk delivery contracts but also the various bounty contacts. When delivering bulk ore to a station the quantity started with 100 metric tons of ore. At Dustspire Junction the demand is for 400 or 500 metric tons and the reward is 35000 credits. If you check the value per kg of the ores, the trade station could not afford to pay for the delivery.
More to the point, mine an extra ton of each are and sell it to the trade station, The offered rewards are quickly seen to be trivial. Next time, I will check to see how much the actual rewards are worth, by selling them back to the trade station.
The bounty mission rewards are equally trivial compared to the resale value of components salvage from an operational station. Grinding down a reactor or a gravity generator is far more rewarding.
Naturally, the difficulty lies in finding thing worth buying. I look forward to the day when trade stations offer complete ships and have no cap on their available credit. Note that a prebuilt ship should sell for more than the resale value of the components that went into building.
As it stands, the only reason to accept a contract is to collect progress points and to unlock blocks.
This seems to be a questionable incentive to keep people playing through the scenario.
I like this feedback
Fully simulated economy?
We can start talking about real economics once we have NPCs and factions in the game. Although, I don't think SE is the kind of game where you can have a fully simulated economy.
First, it's extremely hard to implement properly. You, as a single player, can still disrupt/exploit it quite badly. You're just too powerful in this game when it comes to production. Resources are pretty much everywhere, and production speed is quite fast, allowing you to play the game without worrying too much about trade if you don't want to, while still being able to build huge ships and bases.
If you make resources very scarce and production very slow, then you inevitably nerf the traditional progression. The only way to make a "real" economy in a game is to design the whole game around that idea. Here we have a free sandbox game where people play it in countless different ways, including making "real economy" servers where they can set things up to make it functional with additional gameplay restrictions and rules.
Yet we still need a way to make money in this game. Money you can spend on all sorts of things: repairing your ships, buying new ones, hiring NPCs, buying special items, and so on.
The economy doesn't have to be fully simulated, but we need some limitations to avoid exploits. If you can sell an infinite amount of item X, that will make it trivial. You would just find the most efficient way of producing that item and quickly make billions.
We can already see some of these limitations in the game. A station has a limited amount of money, forcing you to not only sell stuff but also buy some if you want to continue selling. This is very similar to how traders work in Vintage Story game.
Factions and shared money
I don't think every station should have a separate money count, though. All stations of the same faction could share a "bank", so you can sell things at one station and buy from another.
This bank could also be tied to the individual player, so every player in multiplayer has to "balance purchases" individually. The amount of money available could vary between factions depending on how many stations they possess. That amount would naturally grow with colonization progress, allowing for bigger and bigger trade volumes.
The variety of items and prices should depend on the sector. In the Verdure sector, food could be very cheap, while other items for sale are mostly primitive, low-tech stuff. In the Kemik sector, food could be more expensive, while some other items that are very common there could cost less.
The variety of items should also be reduced drastically. In order to buy certain items, you should need to find a specific station in a specific sector.
With this system, it would be better for factions to spread through different sectors rather than cluster tightly in specific areas. There can be "preferred" sectors for each faction where they have a lot of stations and outposts, but you should still be able to find their stations in many other sectors as well.
Reputation and trade volume
You can have friendly relationships with a certain faction, and this should have an impact on not the prices, but the VOLUME you can trade with them.
In other words, the faction's "bank", or the "trade balance", also grows for you. Having a bigger bank allows you to buy and sell larger amounts of goods. The one-time sell/buy volume increase allows you to do serious business in fewer "round trips". This is where you can make more money or simply start to rely on the faction supplies.
Higher reputation could also unlock additional trades, such as high-tech or special items that you simply cannot obtain anywhere else. For example, a production recipe for items unique to that faction.
The main idea
We probably can't have a full-fledged economy simulation in this game, but interacting with the economy should still be worthwhile. It should be a genuinely viable progression path if you enjoy trading, while money should also be useful for various services and for obtaining unique capabilities from different factions.
Fully simulated economy?
We can start talking about real economics once we have NPCs and factions in the game. Although, I don't think SE is the kind of game where you can have a fully simulated economy.
First, it's extremely hard to implement properly. You, as a single player, can still disrupt/exploit it quite badly. You're just too powerful in this game when it comes to production. Resources are pretty much everywhere, and production speed is quite fast, allowing you to play the game without worrying too much about trade if you don't want to, while still being able to build huge ships and bases.
If you make resources very scarce and production very slow, then you inevitably nerf the traditional progression. The only way to make a "real" economy in a game is to design the whole game around that idea. Here we have a free sandbox game where people play it in countless different ways, including making "real economy" servers where they can set things up to make it functional with additional gameplay restrictions and rules.
Yet we still need a way to make money in this game. Money you can spend on all sorts of things: repairing your ships, buying new ones, hiring NPCs, buying special items, and so on.
The economy doesn't have to be fully simulated, but we need some limitations to avoid exploits. If you can sell an infinite amount of item X, that will make it trivial. You would just find the most efficient way of producing that item and quickly make billions.
We can already see some of these limitations in the game. A station has a limited amount of money, forcing you to not only sell stuff but also buy some if you want to continue selling. This is very similar to how traders work in Vintage Story game.
Factions and shared money
I don't think every station should have a separate money count, though. All stations of the same faction could share a "bank", so you can sell things at one station and buy from another.
This bank could also be tied to the individual player, so every player in multiplayer has to "balance purchases" individually. The amount of money available could vary between factions depending on how many stations they possess. That amount would naturally grow with colonization progress, allowing for bigger and bigger trade volumes.
The variety of items and prices should depend on the sector. In the Verdure sector, food could be very cheap, while other items for sale are mostly primitive, low-tech stuff. In the Kemik sector, food could be more expensive, while some other items that are very common there could cost less.
The variety of items should also be reduced drastically. In order to buy certain items, you should need to find a specific station in a specific sector.
With this system, it would be better for factions to spread through different sectors rather than cluster tightly in specific areas. There can be "preferred" sectors for each faction where they have a lot of stations and outposts, but you should still be able to find their stations in many other sectors as well.
Reputation and trade volume
You can have friendly relationships with a certain faction, and this should have an impact on not the prices, but the VOLUME you can trade with them.
In other words, the faction's "bank", or the "trade balance", also grows for you. Having a bigger bank allows you to buy and sell larger amounts of goods. The one-time sell/buy volume increase allows you to do serious business in fewer "round trips". This is where you can make more money or simply start to rely on the faction supplies.
Higher reputation could also unlock additional trades, such as high-tech or special items that you simply cannot obtain anywhere else. For example, a production recipe for items unique to that faction.
The main idea
We probably can't have a full-fledged economy simulation in this game, but interacting with the economy should still be worthwhile. It should be a genuinely viable progression path if you enjoy trading, while money should also be useful for various services and for obtaining unique capabilities from different factions.
Basic economic trade requires deficits in local stock supplies, the current distribution of raw materials, the ease of manufacture and fast travel makes such deficits minimal between the station jumps. For the economy to work it may be necessary to increase the variety of product and resource types to enable localised rarity. Technology and manufacturing would require increased diversity, and fast travel should require a cost based on the mass being moved.
Basic economic trade requires deficits in local stock supplies, the current distribution of raw materials, the ease of manufacture and fast travel makes such deficits minimal between the station jumps. For the economy to work it may be necessary to increase the variety of product and resource types to enable localised rarity. Technology and manufacturing would require increased diversity, and fast travel should require a cost based on the mass being moved.
Would love to see a living economy that makes playing as a merchant possible. Another post talks about pressure and that if you dont stop for example the renegades on a certain planet or system, they will establish themselves and this could bring up the prices for goods in that system if you trade with the colonization authority.
https://support.keenswh.com/spaceengineers2/pc/topic/55240-vs2-3-feedback-creating-an-emergent-engineering-world
Would love to see a living economy that makes playing as a merchant possible. Another post talks about pressure and that if you dont stop for example the renegades on a certain planet or system, they will establish themselves and this could bring up the prices for goods in that system if you trade with the colonization authority.
https://support.keenswh.com/spaceengineers2/pc/topic/55240-vs2-3-feedback-creating-an-emergent-engineering-world
Economics?
In the game? 
For a game economy to work, you need at least roughly realistic prices for goods and services and at least roughly realistic market participants.
Economics?
In the game? 
For a game economy to work, you need at least roughly realistic prices for goods and services and at least roughly realistic market participants.
Fully simulated economy?
We can start talking about real economics once we have NPCs and factions in the game. Although, I don't think SE is the kind of game where you can have a fully simulated economy.
First, it's extremely hard to implement properly. You, as a single player, can still disrupt/exploit it quite badly. You're just too powerful in this game when it comes to production. Resources are pretty much everywhere, and production speed is quite fast, allowing you to play the game without worrying too much about trade if you don't want to, while still being able to build huge ships and bases.
If you make resources very scarce and production very slow, then you inevitably nerf the traditional progression. The only way to make a "real" economy in a game is to design the whole game around that idea. Here we have a free sandbox game where people play it in countless different ways, including making "real economy" servers where they can set things up to make it functional with additional gameplay restrictions and rules.
Yet we still need a way to make money in this game. Money you can spend on all sorts of things: repairing your ships, buying new ones, hiring NPCs, buying special items, and so on.
The economy doesn't have to be fully simulated, but we need some limitations to avoid exploits. If you can sell an infinite amount of item X, that will make it trivial. You would just find the most efficient way of producing that item and quickly make billions.
We can already see some of these limitations in the game. A station has a limited amount of money, forcing you to not only sell stuff but also buy some if you want to continue selling. This is very similar to how traders work in Vintage Story game.
Factions and shared money
I don't think every station should have a separate money count, though. All stations of the same faction could share a "bank", so you can sell things at one station and buy from another.
This bank could also be tied to the individual player, so every player in multiplayer has to "balance purchases" individually. The amount of money available could vary between factions depending on how many stations they possess. That amount would naturally grow with colonization progress, allowing for bigger and bigger trade volumes.
The variety of items and prices should depend on the sector. In the Verdure sector, food could be very cheap, while other items for sale are mostly primitive, low-tech stuff. In the Kemik sector, food could be more expensive, while some other items that are very common there could cost less.
The variety of items should also be reduced drastically. In order to buy certain items, you should need to find a specific station in a specific sector.
With this system, it would be better for factions to spread through different sectors rather than cluster tightly in specific areas. There can be "preferred" sectors for each faction where they have a lot of stations and outposts, but you should still be able to find their stations in many other sectors as well.
Reputation and trade volume
You can have friendly relationships with a certain faction, and this should have an impact on not the prices, but the VOLUME you can trade with them.
In other words, the faction's "bank", or the "trade balance", also grows for you. Having a bigger bank allows you to buy and sell larger amounts of goods. The one-time sell/buy volume increase allows you to do serious business in fewer "round trips". This is where you can make more money or simply start to rely on the faction supplies.
Higher reputation could also unlock additional trades, such as high-tech or special items that you simply cannot obtain anywhere else. For example, a production recipe for items unique to that faction.
The main idea
We probably can't have a full-fledged economy simulation in this game, but interacting with the economy should still be worthwhile. It should be a genuinely viable progression path if you enjoy trading, while money should also be useful for various services and for obtaining unique capabilities from different factions.
Fully simulated economy?
We can start talking about real economics once we have NPCs and factions in the game. Although, I don't think SE is the kind of game where you can have a fully simulated economy.
First, it's extremely hard to implement properly. You, as a single player, can still disrupt/exploit it quite badly. You're just too powerful in this game when it comes to production. Resources are pretty much everywhere, and production speed is quite fast, allowing you to play the game without worrying too much about trade if you don't want to, while still being able to build huge ships and bases.
If you make resources very scarce and production very slow, then you inevitably nerf the traditional progression. The only way to make a "real" economy in a game is to design the whole game around that idea. Here we have a free sandbox game where people play it in countless different ways, including making "real economy" servers where they can set things up to make it functional with additional gameplay restrictions and rules.
Yet we still need a way to make money in this game. Money you can spend on all sorts of things: repairing your ships, buying new ones, hiring NPCs, buying special items, and so on.
The economy doesn't have to be fully simulated, but we need some limitations to avoid exploits. If you can sell an infinite amount of item X, that will make it trivial. You would just find the most efficient way of producing that item and quickly make billions.
We can already see some of these limitations in the game. A station has a limited amount of money, forcing you to not only sell stuff but also buy some if you want to continue selling. This is very similar to how traders work in Vintage Story game.
Factions and shared money
I don't think every station should have a separate money count, though. All stations of the same faction could share a "bank", so you can sell things at one station and buy from another.
This bank could also be tied to the individual player, so every player in multiplayer has to "balance purchases" individually. The amount of money available could vary between factions depending on how many stations they possess. That amount would naturally grow with colonization progress, allowing for bigger and bigger trade volumes.
The variety of items and prices should depend on the sector. In the Verdure sector, food could be very cheap, while other items for sale are mostly primitive, low-tech stuff. In the Kemik sector, food could be more expensive, while some other items that are very common there could cost less.
The variety of items should also be reduced drastically. In order to buy certain items, you should need to find a specific station in a specific sector.
With this system, it would be better for factions to spread through different sectors rather than cluster tightly in specific areas. There can be "preferred" sectors for each faction where they have a lot of stations and outposts, but you should still be able to find their stations in many other sectors as well.
Reputation and trade volume
You can have friendly relationships with a certain faction, and this should have an impact on not the prices, but the VOLUME you can trade with them.
In other words, the faction's "bank", or the "trade balance", also grows for you. Having a bigger bank allows you to buy and sell larger amounts of goods. The one-time sell/buy volume increase allows you to do serious business in fewer "round trips". This is where you can make more money or simply start to rely on the faction supplies.
Higher reputation could also unlock additional trades, such as high-tech or special items that you simply cannot obtain anywhere else. For example, a production recipe for items unique to that faction.
The main idea
We probably can't have a full-fledged economy simulation in this game, but interacting with the economy should still be worthwhile. It should be a genuinely viable progression path if you enjoy trading, while money should also be useful for various services and for obtaining unique capabilities from different factions.
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