Defining a new economic system for future versions

[safemode]

supply and demand is a given, it's how do we define supply and how do we define demand, and most of all, how do we communicate both in an obviously system or even sector wide economy.

That is what is being debated.

If we define supply and demand on a base to base formula, only looking at the demand for things at that base, and making supply a simple formula of what's being traded in + some constants of production ... that's one way. Also there is the option to add a multiplier to fudge the amount traded.


Then we have the same thing but on a system level.. where we group bases supply and compare to the supply of surrounding systems and the demands of goods of surrounding systems to the current system's demands.

Then we have a supply and demand using Factions rather than systems.


All the other suggestions basically follows one of the above mentioned types of supply and demand models, making modifications to how much the supply or demand should be based on a variety of things (distance, risk, affiliation).

It comes down to, how much time the communication of data is going to take, and just what method of implementing that communication is the best balance of time vs realism vs gameplay.

We can say that the answer to the first is that it must be very fast, no more than a tiny fraction of a second.

The second question is going to be up to those willing to actually write the code ...because we wont really know the answer until we can profile and play it.

[javier]

To me, the solution should be a multi layer approach. A highly abstracted approach is enough to the vast majority of systems not active, and it should be cheap enough computationally speaking. Also, for such systems, we can afford to make calculations only on spare time, as variations does not need to be significant in short periods. There could be a separate low priority thread doing those calculations. Indeed, this is a perfect example of a thing that shouldn't be synchronized.

But, if we want to make a credible economy that is also fun, there is one concept that must be introduced: Development grade.

In fully developed systems, the economy runs at such large scale that you really cannot affect it in any realistic way. In those systems there is an strong security presence, so you can do trading with a high degree of safety, but your profit margins should be low, because it's rare to find shortages to cash in.

In less developed or frontier systems, on the opposite, risk are incrementally higher, as there are the opportunities and the benefits. On those systems, a cargo unit arriving a base must make a difference, so an AI/event driven model upon the global one would work better. And, again, I don't think this is computationally intensive, as such AI only needs to make calculations on departure from the origin base to decide what to buy and where to go, evaluating risks and benefits, and on arrival to recompute prices and stocks.

Discerning if a system is a developed or a frontier one, is another thing, but on a first approach can be decided simply on population numbers.

[zeroangel]

This is a repost of a series of my posts from the User Help forum, just wanted to throw in my two cents on the economy question.

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OK, so I got the SVN and its great. Many of my earlier gripes seem to have been addressed. However, I now find myself frustrated with trading.

I'm not saying its now unbalanced, quite the contrary. There is actually now quite the motivation for me to take combat jobs, but still enough to be made from trade to make it a viable choice.

The issue I have is this:

I have only found one good trade route, that is: Oceanic world -> Mine/Ice/Arid/et al. Buy usually natural products or entertainment goods at the Oceanic world and sell at the desolate hell-hole.

I have found that buying raw materials at a mine is profitable too, but there is seldom many raw materials to buy, whereas Oceanic worlds always seem to have lots of natural resources. Why is that? Seafood I get, but wines? Livestock? Meat?

Bio Diverse worlds don't seem to have much, I reasoned that perhaps they need thier food to eat, but then why don't they have a bunch of oil to export?

Oceanic worlds often have something like 3,333cubic meters of meat, for example. IRL, thats just around 50 or so of your standard 40ft. shipping containers. That wouldn't even fill a pitifully small fraction of a modern day container ship, and yet, in the far future, this is all you can buy in a spaceport?

Am I missing some good routes here? I've been to Trantor worlds, Arid, Desert, Ice, Bio Diverse, and Oceanic. It seems the Oceanic only has large quantities of goods to sell and even those "large" quantities are pitifully small considering the above reference to modren day. The other worlds, I can buy out anything thats worth exporting and not even fill my hold in one visit.

Has anyone given this some thought?

Thank you!

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*Brief discussion confirming my suspicions followed.*

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Well, gee... it can't be all that hard to rectify this can it? I realize there is a great deal of discussion about a true economy and worlds consuming goods. But, for a short term fix, how about just fix it so that Oceanic worlds aren't the only choice?

As things currently stand it can't be much more than some matrix that designates what cargo is found on what worlds and for what prices * some pseudo-random number, correct?

I really think it shouldn't be hard to work out something for each product and world:

Oceanic worlds should have plenty of seafood and perhaps many other natural products (plants) that could be perhaps grown in floating farms or hydropondics.

Bio Diverse worlds should have a great deal of natural resources of all kinds to include fossilized fuels, livestock, meats, food, seafood, plants, ore, etc. They should also have (along with commerce centers) many entertainment or consumer products.

Arid / Ice / Volcanic / Rocky worlds and mines should have a variety of natural ores or otherwise; perhaps fossil fuels left over from long dead life or perhaps no fossil fuels at all and just ore.

Trantor(sp?) worlds and factories should have plenty of industrial-type products and electronics or AI, personal transport, industrial machines, high-tech upgrades and ships, etc.

Refineries and Trantor worlds should have refined ores and / or fuels.

I would love to contribute what I can as much as possible in this regard. I have coding experience with a variety of languages and scripts but I am a bit out of practice. I might be more useful just by compiling a list of cargo and where they can / should be found.

[safemode]

quantities are always an issue. In reality we dont currently have a trade system to simulate what really would need to be traded to maintain an intersteller empire. Even faking, we have yet to figure out a good algorithm that still makes simulated ships benefit from trading while handling the "simulation" of fleets of non-simulated ships trading as well to handle the actual needs of a civilization.

If we wanted to simulate everything the game would be flooded with trading vessels with little ability to do anything else.

If we wanted to inflate the size of what you could put on your ship, it would get unrealistic fast. You would need to be able to hold capship sized amounts of cargo.

Another idea that hasn't been talked about is leaving the bulk trading of goods up to special NPC controlled trading vessels. (Mile long super tankers). Then all other trading is rare or miscelaneous (yet integral) goods. That way it makes sense to be trading your good on such a small scale for profit, while the economy doesn't seem entirely fake because all bulk trading is done via the super tankers.

Then we can make missions involving such super tankers (and we can use super tanker trade routes as a rallying point for conflicts).


that's my idea as it stands now. Make super tankers to handle bulk good trading, (the destruction of such a ship could be devestating to a base), and make all smaller scale trading deal in special items of interest. Munitions being one, people another, etc etc.

This would then make trading with non-central bases especially profitable, as they may not get may super tanker visits. Some bases may get none.

Super tankers wouldn't dock with a base, rather they would have a fleet of transport ships inside their bays that haul massive amounts of goods. They travel to an area, then launch all their transport vessels, dock with a base deposit thier cargo, buy up massive amounts of bulk goods, and redock with the super tanker. Super tankers are behomoth vessels, with huge cargo bays that hold a hundred cargo ships, which they launch all at once. They have huge engines, and good shields, but they have very thin armour to reduce mass, and increase fuel efficiency. They are always accompanied by massive military escorts. They are prized by their factions as they are extremely expensive (both the ship and what's in it).

Not sure if that last part can be implemented in VS now, but god help me it will be someday.

make the super tanker able to hold an insane amount of cargo. Then make 50 cargo vessels per super tanker. (one super tanker per major system). The 50 cargo vessels have a simple mission. They but their own hold from the super tanker while docked. They launch when the super tanker is in position and dock with the nearest base. They sell their holds and buy what the base provides. They then go back to the super tanker and sell their holds to the super tanker, buy their holds worth again (of the cargo other than what they sold to the super tanker) and repeat the process. They do this until A. the super tanker runs out of old cargo, or B. the base doesn't need anything the super tanker has.

The super tanker then moves on to the next base (the order of which is programmed into the supertanker when it's injected into the system). Supertankers only jump to other system's on rare occasions. That is, when they can't offload their cargo. They will eventually come back to their home system's though.

In this way, we can make base production and requirements realistic (on the orders of millions of cubic ft worth). and we can have real in-game simulation of the trading, by minimizing the number of ships needed to do the trading (rather than hundreds and hundreds of trading ships, we make 1 super tanker with a few dozen trading ships that launch from it (basically cargo shuttles)).

[mortaneous]

Supertankers carrying other ships... that sounds like the Dune universe to me, Guild Heighliners and all... oh I smell another Mod opportunity if that idea was implemented.

[safemode]

really there is no other non-hackish way to do a realistic economy. You have to reduce the number of ships involved in base to base trading. the only way to do that is with massive carriers (tankers) etc.

Go base to base with the carriers, then shuttle goods rapidly at close range back and forth until the total transfer is complete, then move on.


it's really ridiculous to have anything less than massive transports dealing with ore and food and such goods.

That means it's going to take some brainstorming to see what's left for the privateer to handle. I think getting the bulk stuff out of the way will benefit gameplay greatly.

[javier]

Maybe could be another approach. A radical one.
Get rid completely of good buying and selling, and substitute that with more cargo missions. Pay for completion of runs depending on the distance, the intrinsic value of goods, the risk afforded and the volume, and you're set.

[loki1950]

Then there must be in-system cargo missions so you can buy your first jump drive

Enjoy the Choice

[javier]

Yes, of course. Low pay in safer systems, more in frontier.

From the point of view of a player, it really doesn't make sense buying and selling goods. As the owner of a merchant ship, like the owner of a truck today, you are hired by others to carry THEIR goods to their destination.

[bgaskey]

Buying and selling has always been an integral part of space traders and I can't support taking it out, although insys cargo missions are a good idea.

[javier]

I've played a lot of games of this kind, beginning with Frontier, and the best trade system I've found was the Privateer II one, where you hire the carrier to transport the goods. My proposal is reverting that, letting you take the role of the transporter.
I know what you're saying, but really, have this system ever worked satisfactorily or presented a real challenge?
Personally, I've found myself repeating the same routes over and over until amassing the necessary earnings to get my fighting ship of choice, and never looking back.

[loki1950]

There are a few of our users who prefer trading various reasons such as they have found that they suck at the combat role but still love the game because they have found a role as small merchant demotion to truck driver might not feel as good.

Enjoy the Choice

[javier]

Well, I don't think we have to make anything because "it have been always made this way".

The main question to be answered is what purpose having an economic system serves? Right now, I think the answer is: to give the player the means to enhance his equipment in an entertaining way.

And here is, IMO, where the buy goods-go to another base-sell goods fails.
Fast enough, the player finds himself repeating the same runs again and again. If goods exhausted, simply look for another system and repeat the same runs. It's not a good symptom that the answer to the question "How do I earn a good profit?" is "Do coffee runs, and don't care about anything else". And, after a while, the only way to increase profit per run is using a bigger ship.

A mission based trading system have several advantages from my point of view.

• It makes easier to avoid repetition. Repetition drives to boredom.
• Easier to balance. From low risk/low pay to high risk-volume/high pay.
• Missions are scripts. You can put events in the middle of a run, or make things happen on success and failure. Or put a time limit to complete the mission.
• They can, also, be more easily connected to the news system to create exceptional opportunities. Announce a surplus or scarcity on some system and put missions to exploit that.
• You can earn a reputation, good or bad, and be offered different kind of missions or payments based on that.

And, on top of this, the system as a whole should be a lot easier to be put in place, as the main pieces are already made.

[Breakable]

Well, I don't think we have to make anything because "it have been always made this way".
...

This seems like a great idea!
At least in the current situation.
It seem to reduce the amount of coding required currently, and it seems it does not take away much from the gameplay experience.

Later when other major issues are resolved, the dynamic economy might become an important feature to implement. And computers might be fast enough to simulate billions of star systems simultaneously without cheating. At least my deepblue 5000! should be able to run it

[safemode]

I know particular events can be scripted with mission scripts, but it would be nice to make VS completely unscripted in that way. To make the events in missions "suggestions" that the AI of affected ships deal with and react to in unique ways depending on what's going on that particular moment and a bit of randomness thrown in.

We really should work on making the dynamic universe truly dynamic. Where missions are different than any mod type missions or missions from previous games.

There should be a way to make missions non-determinant, and still maintain a plot for a campaign. Getting that to happen should be a major goal of VS's campaign, and what sets it apart from other games.



That being said, how come nobody likes my super tanker idea top handle "realism" of maintaining inter-base trading while leaving privateers to trade in much smaller scale and more lucrative specialized trading.

Things that would still be in the realm of privateers would be medical supplies, people (this should really be a big one, not everyone has a ship), munitions, special items (one of a kinds ), contraband, repair items, other misc things.

Also you would have more ways to make money in-system via missions to escort the super tanker or guard the super tanker's transports during a drop-off at a base.

[Deus Siddis]

A mission based trading system have several advantages from my point of view.

The old Escape Velocity series had trading missions and freelance trading; they were both extremely monotonous. The combat campaign missions were the only interesting things to do besides piracy or conquering planets.

If you want to add more ways to make credits that are interesting, add different kinds of mining and establishing colonies and bases that provide you income as long as you keep them alive and healthy.

[*]It makes easier to avoid repetition. Repetition drives to boredom.

I disagree, I don't see anything less repetitive that can be done with scripted or dynamic trade missions that can't be done with anything else in a dynamic universe. In fact, missions in many ways make things more repetitive, as you have to follow the games rules for missions rather than making up your own.

[*]Easier to balance. From low risk/low pay to high risk-volume/high pay.

You can do the same for uncommissioned trade runs. Higher volume will automatically make you more cash, that's not something you have to balance. And risk is not hard to account for either, the more deaths their are on the route between a desert and water planet, the greater the price difference for water between those two worlds. Blockades do the same thing.

[*]Missions are scripts. You can put events in the middle of a run, or make things happen on success and failure. Or put a time limit to complete the mission.

Instead of missions with scripted events, have it so that in certain places or when you are carrying certain types of cargo, certain things can happen to you.

Carrying munitions close to pirate or uln space could attract alot of unwanted attention, same could go for flying prototype test data close or through aera space. Flying closer to a sun while carrying certain unstable chemicals could increase the risk of a hazardous internal explosion. Or flying around to long with that xenomorph specimen from lv-426 could lead to a reduction in your supply of onboard foodstuffs and passengers followed by your own demise.

The point is you can script stuff based on cargo and location, rather than the same missions that you have to fly over and over.

[*]They can, also, be more easily connected to the news system to create exceptional opportunities. Announce a surplus or scarcity on some system and put missions to exploit that.

These news events can just as easily or more easily affect prices, instead of creating missions.

[*]You can earn a reputation, good or bad, and be offered different kind of missions or payments based on that.

But you don't need for the game to tell you what you can and cannot do, if a particular run is too challenging for you and your current equipment, then you'll just die before completing it.

And, on top of this, the system as a whole should be a lot easier to be put in place, as the main pieces are already made.

I'm not sure that it is, this sounds a little like stone soup. Cargo run missions are really cheap, but flavorless and boring like the stone. A dynamic universe with a dynamic economy is like vegetable soup, takes a while to grow those vegetables and make it, but it has flavor and can be interesting and nutritious. So when you add all of this dynamic or scripted complexity to missions, you are calling it stone soup, and there is in fact a stone in there, but what people are tasting is the vegetables which took just as much time and effort to make.

[mortaneous]

I never said I didn't like the super-tanker method... the idea is quite sound. I was just saying that if it was implemented that way, it'd make things easier if a mod needed that sort of functionality for a reason other than the game's economic system.

[Zolk]

I think the problem is to find an economic model which is realistic, easy to implement and fun to play.
So we should make things simpler by starting with a model which easy modifiable but too simple to be realsitic, easy to implement and still offers as much fun to play as possible.
We could start with fixed demand/supply figures per types of docking station, modified at the beginning only by faction dependent interest in special commodities.
From these figures system wide excess demand/supply figures could be calculated (or assumed for further away systems not generated in detail). Every now and then (e.g. with every jump and every docking of the player) the prices of all commodiities are calculated depending only on the old prices, these demand/supply figures and the time and risk of trading these goods between neighbouring systems. The dependencies for multijump trading will appear automatically after calculating this several times.
The local prices at the different stations within an system can be determined analogeous from the system prices, taking into account the distances and risks (because of enemy star ships in the vincity).
All this assumed trading as well as the trading of the player would than change future demand for the next iteration.
Of course this proposed model doesn't assume real, visible ships for the trading. Furthermore realistic demand differencies between a planet and a small mining station would make it uninteresting to trade either with the mining station (to few commodities) or the planet (to huge and static trading patterns).
Of course, the price tuning should be so, that milk runs without risk between stations with huge demand must not be profitable for the player, as he will have to compete with huge commercial enterprises.
Real trading profits to the player should be limited to either risky routes or to trade between stations with low demand, which can't be done again because the trading of the player fulfilled the demand for a long time.

[safemode]

prices due to travel hazards are up to the trader to determine. The base you're trading to will only pay the lowest price necessary. So just because it's hard for you to ship a certain thing to it, doesn't mean it's hard for other traders to. Thus this whole broken idea of getting different prices per hazards during transit is illogical and weak.

Unless you want to impliment haggling, I suggest we stay away from player determined pricing.

If it's too much of a hassle to transport something for what a base is saying they'll give you for it, then too damn bad for you. You made a bad choice and should learn from it. That's where the strategy comes from.

[Zolk]

I didn't want to reduce the trading risk for the player. But I would assume non-player traders to avoid risk and (for simplicity) to belong to either the supplying or demaning stations faction, and I would estimate the risk as proportional to the inverse of the lowest distance of enemy space crafts to the involved stations and jump points.

[Breakable]

Please see that there is difference between realistic and believable gameplay.
Achieving realism should not be a goal. Believability in my opinion is important though - because if you believe in game, its more fun to play.

[safemode]

It's the believability factor that i think the use of mega-transports is the "easiest" solution. It requires no black magic behind the scenes code or anything else really special. Just some custom scripts to have the regular sized transports docked inside to carry out trading to and from bases.

Scale can be made believable then, as will the function of trade, and the trading missions that are left selectable.

That's not just a realistic change, it's a change that doesn't require you to suspend much belief at all for it to be "workable"

[Breakable]

It's the believability factor that i think the use of mega-transports is the "easiest" solution. It requires no black magic behind the scenes code or anything else really special. Just some custom scripts to have the regular sized transports docked inside to carry out trading to and from bases.

Scale can be made believable then, as will the function of trade, and the trading missions that are left selectable.

That's not just a realistic change, it's a change that doesn't require you to suspend much belief at all for it to be "workable"

That should do the trick, and the player could even invest money to buy a mega-transport himself, and participate in this economy.

[javier]

[*]It makes easier to avoid repetition. Repetition drives to boredom.

I disagree, I don't see anything less repetitive that can be done with scripted or dynamic trade missions that can't be done with anything else in a dynamic universe. In fact, missions in many ways make things more repetitive, as you have to follow the games rules for missions rather than making up your own.

I disagree with your disagreement
While this could be true in a closed source game, there is no reason for an open source one not to have a continuously growing set of missions, if we even have a good devkit.

[*]Easier to balance. From low risk/low pay to high risk-volume/high pay.

You can do the same for uncommissioned trade runs. Higher volume will automatically make you more cash, that's not something you have to balance. And risk is not hard to account for either, the more deaths their are on the route between a desert and water planet, the greater the price difference for water between those two worlds. Blockades do the same thing.

Again, I disagree on this. The risk can not be measured on the number of kills. If anything, a merchant would want to avoid combat as much as possible. A high risk mission could mean you must use a cloaking device or outrun the foes. And right now, you cannot make the destination pays a higher price for your troubles to get there, so the only alternative is to put that increment on the originator.

[*]Missions are scripts. You can put events in the middle of a run, or make things happen on success and failure. Or put a time limit to complete the mission.

Instead of missions with scripted events, have it so that in certain places or when you are carrying certain types of cargo, certain things can happen to you.

Carrying munitions close to pirate or uln space could attract alot of unwanted attention, same could go for flying prototype test data close or through aera space. Flying closer to a sun while carrying certain unstable chemicals could increase the risk of a hazardous internal explosion. Or flying around to long with that xenomorph specimen from lv-426 could lead to a reduction in your supply of onboard foodstuffs and passengers followed by your own demise.

The point is you can script stuff based on cargo and location, rather than the same missions that you have to fly over and over.

This is a good idea that should be implemented no matter what the final economic system will be. There should be places that are inherently riskier for you.
I posted a comment, don't know exactly where, about the need to differentiate between core and frontier systems. Core systems are safer but less profitable on opposition to frontier systems where higher gains could be made at the expense of higher risks.

[*]They can, also, be more easily connected to the news system to create exceptional opportunities. Announce a surplus or scarcity on some system and put missions to exploit that.

These news events can just as easily or more easily affect prices, instead of creating missions.

Of course, but you again have the problem that, right now, there is no way to modify the price of something only in a place. Doing it through mission design detours this.

[*]You can earn a reputation, good or bad, and be offered different kind of missions or payments based on that.

But you don't need for the game to tell you what you can and cannot do, if a particular run is too challenging for you and your current equipment, then you'll just die before completing it.

You're looking this from the opposite. Of course the game cannot forbid you to try some run, but the point is, why somebody would trust his valuable cargo to you if you have a record of failures?

And, on top of this, the system as a whole should be a lot easier to be put in place, as the main pieces are already made.

I'm not sure that it is, this sounds a little like stone soup. Cargo run missions are really cheap, but flavorless and boring like the stone. A dynamic universe with a dynamic economy is like vegetable soup, takes a while to grow those vegetables and make it, but it has flavor and can be interesting and nutritious. So when you add all of this dynamic or scripted complexity to missions, you are calling it stone soup, and there is in fact a stone in there, but what people are tasting is the vegetables which took just as much time and effort to make.

I'd prefer to have a complex economic system. but the real question could be, it's really worth the trouble? To me, as of now, the answer is no, not really.
I become to see it this way. The economic system is really useful in the first steps of the game, what it could be called the building phase. After that, the player doesn't really need the credits, and usually look for better challenges, or, as in the mods, for the scripted storylines. So, after some point, the effort we can put on the development of a complex system is wasted.

[Deus Siddis]

Well I don't find the economy to be a really interesting part of the game either. So my suggestion would be to just patch up the bugs and balance when it comes to trade and then move on to make the rest of the game more interesting. Save the mission scripting for the campaigns and make the game much more about small and large scale combat, exploration, mining and establishing/protecting stations and colonies to build your own little empire.

All these aspects of gameplay tie into trade anyway, so by focusing on things beyond trade, you make trading or simply moving cargo around more interesting with the same stroke.