economy

Post your best tactics and strategies for getting the big bux in Vega Strike
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kensuguro
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economy

Post by kensuguro »

does anyone know how vegastrike's economy works? How prices get determined, etc.. I don't mean to be looking for a hack, or how the code works exactly, but I'm curious as to how the economy balances itself across such a huge universe.

I recently played Galaxy on Fire 2 on iPad, because it reminded me of vegastrike.. I found gof2's economy very straight forward and easy to understand.. in fact too simple. It was clearly designed so you could game the trade routes if you explored it thoroughly (and found the hidden systems). You could consistently find specific products at specific places, and so once you figured it out, you just had to do the same trips over and over.

I'm also playing X3 reunion. This one's got a very sophisticated economy system, with AI traders moving stuff around, and prices changing depending on supply of products. There's also the concept of "consumption" where factories consume resources to manufacture products. (you buy and sell the products) Then you can build your own factories, etc a bunch of more advanced trading. As an economy, I'm not sure how much of it is truly dynamic since loose systems like this could easily spin out of control. There's also a bit of strangeness in how the demand/supply works, for ex: a factory's product's price varies depending on how much stock the factory has.. That's very strange business behavior.

And then there's vegastrike's economy. Prices vary, and certain locations have higher supply of products. You can go in an buy it, and sell it elsewhere. How does the void (that you just created) get replenished? Where do the products come from?

I'm just curious about these things because I just designed a simple economy system for a game (that my company is working on) and looked back at Elite style games as having very sophisticated, and fun economies.
klauss
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Re: economy

Post by klauss »

kensuguro wrote:I'm also playing X3 reunion. This one's got a very sophisticated economy system, with AI traders moving stuff around, and prices changing depending on supply of products. There's also the concept of "consumption" where factories consume resources to manufacture products. (you buy and sell the products) Then you can build your own factories, etc a bunch of more advanced trading. As an economy, I'm not sure how much of it is truly dynamic since loose systems like this could easily spin out of control. There's also a bit of strangeness in how the demand/supply works, for ex: a factory's product's price varies depending on how much stock the factory has.. That's very strange business behavior.
VS economy is designed like this, mostly, but there are some balancing issues that make it behave a lot more static, more like the first one you described.

There's already a group of people concerned with that, and that will probably result in a few fixes in that area.

In any case, the intent is to have a system as dynamic as X3's, if not more.
kenseguro wrote:And then there's vegastrike's economy. Prices vary, and certain locations have higher supply of products. You can go in an buy it, and sell it elsewhere. How does the void (that you just created) get replenished? Where do the products come from?
VS has galactic-level statistical simulation of trading goods. The system simulates, numerically, the effect of AI ships moving stuff around. I've seen the code in VS, but I haven't seen the effect as clear as it should be (hence the balancing issue I've mentioned above).

In any case, the system has the potential to behave like X3's or even better, with some love, since war zones will require supplies that will be ferried by AI in this numerical simulation, driving prices up and down.

And winning or loosing wars. Since the simulation of the economy influences supplies and supplies influence the simulation of the wars raging across the galaxy, so shortage of some supplies might mean battles lost.

Of course, I'm mentioning possibilities of code I've seen laying around, the system doesn't feel that complex, and I'd catalogue that as a bug.

A bug that needs fixing, that can be fixed.
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kensuguro
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Re: economy

Post by kensuguro »

Klauss! Long time!

Good to hear the economy is going to be worked on. X3's economy is complex, with ,ost of the complexity surrounding how you can build factories and complexes.. While that part is very sophisticated, the supply demandart of it is really strange.

As ive stated, a factory's own supply determines its selling price (less product in stock = more expensive) which makes no business sense. A forum member on x3 forums explained to me it ws a game balance issue.. But strange nonetheless.

Trade centers and equpment facilities also buy products (fromyounor ai) at "-average price". Its unclear where is average comes from. It is consistent throughout the entire galaxy... And that makes no business sense for any business emtity to do that.. Even if was an archaic strategy to hedge price changing risk.

That said, though your options in how to participate in the exconomy may be complex, the behavior of each business entity makes no sense, forcing me to strategize based on artificial rules, and not regular business sense.. Alot of it is feels especially awkward for me because i design economy systems for games, and also make strategies for my company (game company)..
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Re: economy

Post by klauss »

kensuguro wrote:Klauss! Long time!
No kidding! :D
kensuguro wrote:As ive stated, a factory's own supply determines its selling price (less product in stock = more expensive) which makes no business sense. A forum member on x3 forums explained to me it ws a game balance issue.. But strange nonetheless.
Hum... that's a very valuable point to be analyzed.

I mean, X3 must have tried common business mechanics and found them exploitable or something... we'll have to analyze the issue I guess.

On the bright side, we're not (yet, anyway) an MMO concerned with cheating, so...
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Creamuur
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Re: economy

Post by Creamuur »

kensuguro wrote:As ive stated, a factory's own supply determines its selling price (less product in stock = more expensive) which makes no business sense...
This is normal economics is it not? The law of supply and demand says that the more of something there is available, the less it should cost. Assuming that the cost of raw materials is taken into account, a factory having a surplus of items should have it for sale at a lower unit price than it would if it were lower in stock, as being lower in stock would imply it's either A) more popular/has a higher demand, or B) is harder to make/transport.

That being said, I too am not a fan of VS' economy system. For example, there is no identification in each system/planet/facility to let us know what's being supplied or demanded. And I'm not saying I want a chart of items and prices, but maybe an experienced merchant should have that ability. A notebook or an investment broker who keeps track of standardized market prices, and fluctuations as they occur, or on an updating basis. I get that trial and error plays a big role, but maybe each planet could have its own description that identifies it's biggest import/export markets, the type of planet, ie. a rural mining planet, a bustling metropolis or the front line over key holding points in the war effort. And agreeably, the idea behind regular and irregular supply shipments should dictate some level of success for wars and space installations. An asteroid has gasses, but how much? Regular supplying should result in discounts or added bonuses.

And finally, my last bit, I think this game would be so perfect that it would make rollercoaster tycoon look shabby, if we could purchase parts required to build our own space facilities and planet operations. I should be able to run raw and refined materials around, but I want to control that process after a while. Letting me go to an arid or rocky planet with factory parts should allow me to start piecing together a small factory, bring more parts and expand. This level of economic complexity would not only make the single player game play exponentially better, but online play would get a huge bump as well. Imagine going from one players mine with their raw ingredients, bringing them to your refinery/factory, and then moving those finished products to medical facs, relay points or cosmpolitan/needy planets.

A bit of work needs to be done, but I think that the economic aspects of this game should expand into it's own expansion pack. Maybe offer a download with updated system tracking for stock markets and the option to get even deeper into the trading/smuggling business, I'm thinking Planet Express style trading/smuggling.
klauss
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Re: economy

Post by klauss »

Creamuur wrote:
kensuguro wrote:As ive stated, a factory's own supply determines its selling price (less product in stock = more expensive) which makes no business sense...
This is normal economics is it not? The law of supply and demand says that the more of something there is available, the less it should cost. Assuming that the cost of raw materials is taken into account, a factory having a surplus of items should have it for sale at a lower unit price than it would if it were lower in stock, as being lower in stock would imply it's either A) more popular/has a higher demand, or B) is harder to make/transport.
No such implication unless actually simulated. Hence the problem. A factory's stock is a local phenomenon, whereas the supply is global.
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Re: economy

Post by IansterGuy »

Creamuur wrote:A bit of work needs to be done, but I think that the economic aspects of this game should expand into it's own expansion pack. Maybe offer a download with updated system tracking for stock markets and the option to get even deeper into the trading/smuggling business.
Expansion pack? You mean SVN patch I think because this is a open source game. It works a little differently in that the players are the developers and updates are implemented smoothly not suddenly. Smuggling is in the game right now I think, it's just not labelled distinctly as a smuggling job. For those who want economy in the game helping figure out exactly how to get from here to there helps. Ideas are good, propositions plans, and road maps are better, and developing game patches is the best. Improving the economy would help make some other related things possible and make the game feel more life like.

Manufacturing components sounds like something desirable, people where talking about creating more destructible subsystems on ships. Manufactureable parts from resources sounds like a continuation of that and actually collecting the resources a further continuation. Even walkable ships and in flight ship repair replacement of components may be related.

This could all be done with enough manpower and when done in the right order. I think the trick is to find the game feature dependencies and work ones way up in any efficient order they should be developed in.
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Re: economy

Post by pheonixstorm »

There was an example econ code attached to one of the econ threads.. not sure where. It made for a good start but it needs a lot of work before it could be anywhere near complete. I think the biggest issue may be is simulating a galactic economy. Local systems should be fairly simple to simulate.

As far as smuggling.. its there, but its not really listed in the mission computer. AFAIK smuggling missions can only be obtained from fixers and perhaps a pirate base. Beyond that.. trading illegal cargo between the stars is considered smuggling aint it?? :twisted:
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klauss
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Re: economy

Post by klauss »

pheonixstorm wrote:There was an example econ code attached to one of the econ threads.. not sure where. It made for a good start but it needs a lot of work before it could be anywhere near complete. I think the biggest issue may be is simulating a galactic economy. Local systems should be fairly simple to simulate.
Back when I did the math, doing a straight-forward matrix-based simulation like we talked would take up a hundred MB of RAM and probably a couple of those on the savegame. With that amount of data and Python's (and our savegame API's) inherent inefficiency when processing large amounts of data, I considered it unworkable.

We were considering alternative representations... once settled, it's just a matter of coding it.
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Re: economy

Post by omegakent »

klauss wrote:Back when I did the math, doing a straight-forward matrix-based simulation like we talked would take up a hundred MB of RAM and probably a couple of those on the savegame. With that amount of data and Python's (and our savegame API's) inherent inefficiency when processing large amounts of data, I considered it unworkable.
Doing a galaxy-level economy demands extreme computational resources in a exponential ratio compared with the number of systems or planets. Why not simply a planet/installation/vessel economy, based in resource input, resource output, and parameters of specific resources rate of consumption or rate of production? And local availability of trade resources and price of each resource should be calculated each time a ship does trade. This way, computation is done over a minimal data set.
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