Ok. So I am mining spec'd. Can we talk for a minute about how this is the worst specialization?
I liked the note in the announce post today about the hyperscanner (cause I really want one now) but it got me thinking. Mining spec now has not one but two artifact requirements. You are going to want a hyperscanner and a beacon artifact.
You also want a mining ship which will run you hundreds of thousands of marks.
You have a massive time investment. You pay for scoops and tethers and probes. You pay for refining.
Meanwhile those who went refining or autofactory spec? They have a minor, basically one time investment of marks and they are done. They can sit on their hands and make marks. At least at some point. Yes there are taxes or fees or whatever, but those are minor. There's no time investment at all. Particularly refining. Even if you wanted to do something, there's nothing to do. Except hope people use your refinery.
tl/dr
Mining = huge upfront costs, ongoing costs and massive time investment.
Refining and autofactories? Minor upfront costs.
[Cassandra]: Poet will be unsurprised to learn that she has unread news.
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Comments
Note - I'm rounding down numbers here, if I were being exact it would look worse. Cost+5 is the standard charge to use someone else's refinery, which means that it will take 5,000 batches being run through the refinery by someone else for that refinery to break even. At 10 minutes per batch, this comes out to a little over 35 RL days of queued material with no stops. So, yes, eventually a refinery can be possible. I'm the 7th ranked manufacturer, I've had refineries since January and the closest a single one of them has come to paying for itself is 2635 batches at this moment, barely over half. So I'd argue that, all things considered - no, refineries are not generally profitable.
I would say mining is far more profitable then other two specializations by far and dedicated miners are sought after or if they are not already they should be. Policy making by players plays a decent role on this.
"They're excited, but poor."
- Ilyos (August 2019)
I think the way the economy is set up is wrong. You may think that's harsh, and you may not agree. That's fine. But as @Slander notes above- there were and are a lot of people who've got into the game thinking they could just go out and do ship stuff. And you really can't. I've heard more than one say "You've got to have money to make money" and then they leave.
Right now, as a rookie player, you get your ship, scrape together a few marks for some tethers, scoops and probes and you go out and scoop some gas. You're excited! You haul that back to a station somewhere. Payday! You poke at some obscure commands and queue up your gas. And, you promptly start to lose money. You look at the queue and it shows umpteen million seconds, which makes no sense to anyone, ever. Now you are confused, and sad. You log off and come back the next day. You have some materials! yay! You haul them somewhere and after another struggle with some obscure commands you finally manage to sell them and you discover you've made enough to buy yourself a beer.
I think that you should get paid. Haul something to a refinery. Get paid.
(unrelated note, why on earth can I not insert an image with the image button?)
I also think that scoops and tethers that limit all the ships to hauling the same amount of materials is not the way to go. There's no reason to buy a freighter or anything for cargo capacity, despite all the work put into giving ships different cargo capacities, as there's nothing to use it for. When you scoop gas, it should go in the hold. When you grab an asteroid, same. You should not be limited by one kind of gas at a time or one asteroid at a time, but only by cargo capacity. Hell, you could introduce mining ships that compress the gas to hold more, or haul multiple asteroids if tethers are still going to be a thing. (think the ice hauler in the Expanse). I just think the current system is unnecessarily limiting. Encourage people to buy bigger ships. (and pay me).
And rookie player by definition is a rookie. Can you expect them to PvP, PvE, Mine or Hack in hard challenges? Economy is similarly is a challenge. Making profit is a challenge. But it is not a challenge that you overtake by your person alone. The veteran players, people who already had their marks to make more marks will hold the hand of those rookie players. Create them stuff to profit while the faction on the whole profits from this interaction. Yes it sucks some people might desire for instant gratification and depart but that is the cost of having a game with some economy. Most IRE games succumb to promo-item/credit economy over time trivializing ingame economy stuff and most things either become unimportant or give returns with the razor thin margins due to over-abundance. Starmourn is so far the only IRE game I played possessing a serious desire to reach for a balanced economy.
Perhaps I might sound like some clueless optimist at times when I speak of these things. Yet that is basically our neverending RP to turn a good profit from almost everything possible in Celestine Ascendancy
And, I'm not sure how my being in one faction or another should make any difference. Market orders are market orders. Unless you are compensating miners out of faction funds in some sort of shadow economy. I would argue that that defeats the purpose, and only makes my points truer.
As Slander says, there's no barriers to bashing. You are given everything you need. If we wanted to bring parity, we'd have to institute "sorting fees" So, you drop off your junk at the pawnshop and the guys like. "Well it's gonna take me a minute to see what's useful here" and then you'd lose money for 8 or 10 hours while he sorted it, and then he'd send you halfway across the galaxy with some scrip you could trade-in for a fraction of what the original junk was worth.
PLEASE, NO. DO NOT TAKE THIS OUT OF CONTEXT AND MAKE IT AN IDEA. THERE WILL BE TEARS OF RAGE.
If something is not profitable but a very useful part of your economy as a faction you make it profitable so you will profit from the subsidy or investment later on immensely. It is not called shadow economy. Why do you have factions if they will not get involved in economy? In the real world countries are quite involved in the economy. They offer subsidies, tax exemptions, do international agreements, provide incentives, reduce interest rates...anything to ensure that goods and money flow around. So why in Starmourn factions should not be involved in the economy?
So yes, the economical model your faction and people you make business adopts makes a GREAT difference.
To Slander:
For mining they do not even need to learn skills but use scoops and their interceptors. From another perspective the mining requires no lesson/credit investment then bashing but simply your starter ship. Even then bashers do not turn immense profits without bashing first to the decent levels where they get lots of scraps and there is the danger of being newbies and dying to charge attacks losing on clone costs. Miners do have a similar danger as well but only if they do not know about incursions or cosmpiercer zones. Now another difference is that mining is a business. You have to sell those goods to someone or to some organization. If there is no one to buy them or the person did not find a lucrative contract, it is natural that will not be profitable. Similarly ship incursions at easy levels are not profitable but teaches you the basics of how to handle a ship.
Older players create environment for new players to thrive on their chosen field. You have the marks, they have the desire to grind gases and minerals? You make it profitable to bring back certain things. You provide them incentives to get involved. Even then they might not choose to get involved. It is alright. Then they should take care of themselves. Economy is not a single player game.
Maybe you can suggest that in the tutorial developers should give starter scoops, probes and tethers as well. Or are you claiming that people start with not enough marks to buy 50 mark scoops? Or they cannot gain 500 marks to buy 10 scoops by doing 5 minutes of quests/incursions/bashing? And as far as I remember when you do not dock those scoops still remain intact for reuse.
Mathematically show me that there is a huge barrier on mining. There is not such a thing. And if the newbie really struggles it will not make any faction go bankrupt to provide them some scoops, tethers or probes.
So if we are not discussing profitability and there is clearly no barrier to getting out to mine things. So what is the problem?
Most losses on player side is caused by not knowing what to do. That is same for all activities. If they do not know about charge attacks they lose precious marks in clone costs in PvE. If they do not know some hacking sites can cause mobs to go hostile, they lose marks. If they do not know to avoid cosmpiercer sites, they lose ship and pay insurance along clone costs. If they do not know how the economy works, they lose time and marks. If they do not know how to PvP but decide to attack someone, they lose. Everything has a learning curve. And it is the natural order of things.
I'm done with you though. I get that you think things are fine. I disagree. Even if they are "fine" they aren't fun, and I still don't think they are balanced.
Okay let me explain it simpler. If economy works for a group of people and does not work for another group of people. It does not say that economy does not work. It does say the other group was not successful. You have to invest initially something for every endeavour. If you want to profit from Cosmpiercers, you have to capture them or promote combat. If you want to profit from Mining, you have to support miners who will do that tedious work. For some people providing resources is fun while it might not be for you.
So as above I suggested the perceived initial barrier can be resolved by making a mining tutorial and giving some free mining equipment. But then let the economy run its full course for everyone.
Regardless, Mining is profitable in Celestine Ascendancy. I really do not wish to enter into more details but I can only say that there is no problem with profitability and I would really hate the economy getting way easier due to some people just 'thinking' it is not balanced.
If you want something not profitable take Armormodding.
No need to assume that I condescend. I present you the facts regarding how Starmourn economy works.
A working one? Sure. It works. That doesn't mean shit really, you can bandage and duct tape and baling wire all kinda shit to make it "work". Doesn't mean you should leave it at that and never get around to fixing it. A HEALTHY mining economy has a very easy to follow set of requirements.
1) People do the leg work, the back-breaking time in the tunnels(space).
2) THEY MAKE A PROFIT (Selling raw resources)
3) People take the mined resources, and they go refine it
4) THEY MAKE A PROFIT (Selling to manufacturers)
5) People take refined resources and make finished goods.
6) PROFIT.
If at any stage during this you have to subsidize to prop up a stage of this chain, it is not healthy. Maybe it works, sure. But the gameplay loop is unhealthy. To suggest otherwise is just being weirdly loyal to a draft of a system. It's stubbornly saying, "we managed to make this work, so you're just stupid" when someone is trying to say, hey in the game this system isn't fun, nor profitable. Which means it is unhealthy.
Also you forgot that a faction can get reliable income from cosmpiercers as well. The more the peace time continues the return on that investment becomes that bigger. And I was the one of the people on forums who pushed for repeatedly that credit purchases should provide some for the faction so we can provide for people better. The world economies are themselves propped up in several places. If you do not know that, then you simply want no economy or an economy where everything is abundant and profits are razor thin.
Let us look at this:
Do you want to do incursions, refinery raids or cosmpiercers? You need ammo right? Then what is more then natural to support people who will produce them for you? And especially if your system returns the investment back to the faction and increases the capital?
I think in this discussion is that you acknowledge the existence of demand but do not wish to acknowledge that you have to make it certain things profitable to take care of that demand. You simply call it propping it up and then say it is not healthy. And you assume we are currently working on a loss by providing incentives saying "no turning point" On the contrary we are investing with the thought that we will make more profit and the recent indicators show that we are actually doing that.
Regardless, I write here for people to see/hear all angles and factions. I have no intention to insult, condescend or antagonize anyone. So do not put words in my mouth, I do not say that you are stupid. I say that your economical approaches did not work.
1. Song, at least, does offer loan programs and buy up resources from its members (in effect, this is a subsidization program).
This is because other IRE factions/organizations/cities have gotten into the horrid mindset of accumulating a Veritable Shitload of currency (marks, gold) that just...sits there. We should not be the same; our faction wealth should be used to improve the QoL of our players. And even with all the spending that Song does, we still have 3 million marks in our faction account because, with all the assists we do, players tend to give back.
Granted, we don't spend upkeep for guards (which are literally a waste of marks, anyway). But, the point is: use your faction's resources to benefit your faction's players.
2. With that said, I agree that mining, in addition to incursioning, should be entry-level activities for space. So, add in tethers/scoops/probes as freebies along with the current haul.
Furthermore, I agree that the way mining and refining interact has issues. First, refining-spec has nothing to do except buy up refineries. We can set up market orders (like I have been), but there's nothing stopping mining-spec people to simply sell to autofactory-spec people directly, and thus effectively cut us out of the process entirely.
The idea that miners bring raw resources to refineries and then the owners get the refined goods is good. This means that refinery-spec will be the ones to handle business with autofactory-spec folks. In essence, the cost to refine will be shouldered by refinery-spec people, plus they will pay miners for the stuff they bring in. It will be the duty of refinery-spec to sell stuff at a price high enough for them to make a reasonable profit in the face of these expenses.
3. /I forgot to add, but it is possible for mining-spec to be profitable.
It currently is, actually. I have running market orders for refined resources that are way above the cost of refining them (although, some are obviously more profitable than others). Just don't expect to make hundreds of thousands of marks in a real-life week; the economy game is (rightfully) a slow burn rather than a get-rich-quick scheme.
"They're excited, but poor."
- Ilyos (August 2019)
It's that we put most of the burden on the first people in the chain. I don't want to do economy stuff at all. And I certainly don't need to to make marks. I can clear thousands an hour bashing with absolutely minimal attention and effort. BUT the game is in beta and we want shit to work. We want it to work and BE FUN, so that we not only attract new players to our obscure genre, but KEEP THEM. So I'm trying things. And watching other people try things, and listening when they tell me- "Hey this sucks". A lot of those people who told me "This sucks", ARE NO LONGER PLAYING. This includes people from all the factions and some who were factionless.
Original point:
Mining takes a lot of time and a fair amount of concentration. The latest spawn changes have definitely made it better, but I'm not trading in my beacon artifact anytime soon. We've concentrated all the barriers to the economy- right at the start of the cycle. So yes, mining equip is a minor expense, but it's still there. The other two specs have nothing. You are going to invest a lot of time flying around. The other two specs have nothing. Once you have finished mining and at the point where you would expect to get paid- you instead incur significant costs and additional time wasted not getting paid. So not only did I invest a lot of my time going out to get the stuff, now I have to wait around again. And pay for the privilege. Other two specs? Additional time invested? Nope. Costs incurred instead of getting paid? Nope.
When a miner delivers materials to the refinery, they should get paid. And then the refinery owner should need to do something, besides own a refinery. Right now the entire cost and time investment of the first two parts of the economy have been basically pushed off on miners. Also, it's probably not that fun owning refineries where there is nothing to do but wait around for people to use them.
I also think that improvements to all parts of the economic system, that you can buy with marks instead of credits would be great. Keep the marks moving, and give people reasons to aspire to bigger and better. Mining ship, better mining gear, refinery overhaul, factory improvements that let you eek a few more % out of whatever.
Current breakdown, as much for organizing my thoughts as anything:
Mining:
Time investment- enormous and ongoing.
Costs: upfront- tethers, scoops, probes and ship insurance. ongoing- refinery fees, more tethers, scoops, probes. Probably also astromechs, repairkits and batteries. Ship insurance if you fail to pay attention, or have bad luck in the interceptor.
Artifacts: beacon, hyperscanner
Upgrades: new ships, ship components, ship refit
Refining:
Time investment- none
Costs- upfront- buy refinery. ongoing- taxes
Artifacts: ? there's a production speed arti, but why would you care how long someone else has to wait?
Ugrades: none
Factories:
Time investment- minimal
Costs- upfront- buy factory. ongoing- taxes
Artifacts: production speed
Upgrades: none
Now let us talk about the burden on the miner. It really does not exist if you adjust the prices properly and/or develop mechanisms that will help your industrial workforce. As the players you have lots of instruments you can tap into before knocking the doors of administrative powers.
Currently I am immensely enjoying current economical mechanics. It is FUN and very ENGAGING, makes us think about how to approach to the issues and overcome those issues through teamwork with faction mates. Also people who might left back then citing the economy reason, that was a time when the economy did not actually work. Right now it does work.
And my fair suggestion is that, if you do not enjoy doing economy stuff. Then simply do not do economy stuff. Nothing worse then doing things that you detest.
Currently all the economy might need is additional reasons to produce more things, so we will have more and more reasons to incentivize miners. Such as consider building furnitures that uses nanoplastic, or perhaps other fancy things such as small paristeel cabins that will fuel the economical beast in several ways.
To answer a post on the forums about economy which is one of my main interests?
I am mathematically telling you that all your claims are untrue. So please stop trying to portray yourself as some kind of trolling victim or going off-topic?
We got that you think things are fine from the first post. You can stop now. We got it.
People bring counter-arguments to your arguments, so the thread develops further. This is the natural form of a FORUM. This is not an echo chamber.