Suggestions for the trade terminals / trade network

Uinyin

So, started playing around a bit with the trade network, and I really like how it's set up here. Sure, it'll take a little while to get used to how things are handled, but in general I definitely see the potential in the system. A couple of suggestions, however, to make it a little easier to handle:

1. Categories. Something along the lines of "TT SHOP <name> STOCK <item> FOR <price> [UNDER <category>]". Unsure if categories should be defined separately in the shop or just use a string.
2. Re-pricing items. Instead of having to unstock it and re-stock it, perhaps just "TT SHOP <name> REPRICE <item> FOR <price> [UNDER <category>]".
3. Having packages sent to you with items that you unstock can get rather messy. Not sure if the answer is to change how items are delivered (such as delivery without a package, but rather just the item directly) or how packages are handled (for instance, OPEN PACKAGE would put all items in the package directly in your inv and autoscrap the empty package).
4. Some clarification in sell-messages would be nice, such as including the sell-price and pointing out that the marks are added directly to the account (I assume they are, anyway? I've found no way to get them from the shop).

Thoughts? Further suggestions?

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kamdian

Also, there should be a way to tax storefronts within faction territory as a means to produce marks for each faction that isn’t donation/group hunt/cosmpiercer based. Also as a means to protect citizen shops since it’s possible at the moment to setup a storefront in other factions. If people want more variety, there is always Omni/Iota to shop in. Though maybe a base tax rate there to serve as a mark sink down the line to base faction taxes off of. 

Flipilaria

kamdian said:

Also, there should be a way to tax storefronts within faction territory as a means to produce marks for each faction that isn’t donation/group hunt/cosmpiercer based. Also as a means to protect citizen shops since it’s possible at the moment to setup a storefront in other factions. If people want more variety, there is always Omni/Iota to shop in. Though maybe a base tax rate there to serve as a mark sink down the line to base faction taxes off of. 

Disagree for the trade network. Economy's bad enough as is without more gold sinks.

I'd be okay with this for physical shops though.

kamdian

Flipilaria said:

kamdian said:

Also, there should be a way to tax storefronts within faction territory as a means to produce marks for each faction that isn’t donation/group hunt/cosmpiercer based. Also as a means to protect citizen shops since it’s possible at the moment to setup a storefront in other factions. If people want more variety, there is always Omni/Iota to shop in. Though maybe a base tax rate there to serve as a mark sink down the line to base faction taxes off of. 

Disagree for the trade network. Economy's bad enough as is without more gold sinks.

I'd be okay with this for physical shops though.

Economy as a whole is another story entirely and won’t be fixed until the market orders are and the bottleneck with people having tethering in Captaincy goes away. I’m talking about a per item sold tax, like 5%, not a yearly tax like in other IREs. With the ability to essentially put a tariff on non-citizen shops with a higher tax rate. 

Flipilaria

kamdian said:

Flipilaria said:

kamdian said:

Also, there should be a way to tax storefronts within faction territory as a means to produce marks for each faction that isn’t donation/group hunt/cosmpiercer based. Also as a means to protect citizen shops since it’s possible at the moment to setup a storefront in other factions. If people want more variety, there is always Omni/Iota to shop in. Though maybe a base tax rate there to serve as a mark sink down the line to base faction taxes off of. 

Disagree for the trade network. Economy's bad enough as is without more gold sinks.

I'd be okay with this for physical shops though.

Economy as a whole is another story entirely and won’t be fixed until the market orders are and the bottleneck with people having tethering in Captaincy goes away. I’m talking about a per item sold tax, like 5%, not a yearly tax like in other IREs. With the ability to essentially put a tariff on non-citizen shops with a higher tax rate. 

And I'm still saying that's a bad idea. Speaking as a shopowner who wants to expand, it's hard enough to sell things without having to either increase the price to account for a tax or to eat the cost of the tax myself. And putting a tariff on non-citizen shops (especially in the effectively unlimited-shop tradenetwork) only encourages factions to exclude others and divides the mud. 

It may make a lot of sense to do that from an in-character perspective (Just as enemying everyone for Cosmpiercers makes sense), but it does not make for a good game.

It might make sense if tradenetwork shops were a finite resource. They are not.

kamdian

Flipilaria said:

kamdian said:

Flipilaria said:

kamdian said:

Also, there should be a way to tax storefronts within faction territory as a means to produce marks for each faction that isn’t donation/group hunt/cosmpiercer based. Also as a means to protect citizen shops since it’s possible at the moment to setup a storefront in other factions. If people want more variety, there is always Omni/Iota to shop in. Though maybe a base tax rate there to serve as a mark sink down the line to base faction taxes off of. 

Disagree for the trade network. Economy's bad enough as is without more gold sinks.

I'd be okay with this for physical shops though.

Economy as a whole is another story entirely and won’t be fixed until the market orders are and the bottleneck with people having tethering in Captaincy goes away. I’m talking about a per item sold tax, like 5%, not a yearly tax like in other IREs. With the ability to essentially put a tariff on non-citizen shops with a higher tax rate. 

And I'm still saying that's a bad idea. Speaking as a shopowner who wants to expand, it's hard enough to sell things without having to either increase the price to account for a tax or to eat the cost of the tax myself. And putting a tariff on non-citizen shops (especially in the effectively unlimited-shop tradenetwork) only encourages factions to exclude others and divides the mud. 

It may make a lot of sense to do that from an in-character perspective (Just as enemying everyone for Cosmpiercers makes sense), but it does not make for a good game.

It might make sense if tradenetwork shops were a finite resource. They are not.

I also have a shop (2 actually) and I am much less concerned about a few to do business and a steeper fee to do business in Scatterhome or Celestine space than I am about available goods to actually sell. Personally I really don’t care if I have to spend 100 marks in tax for a 1000 mark item because i’ll Still be making a profit. This isn’t the same issue as manufacturing given that there isn’t a huge divide between market price and profitability nor is there an issue with scarcity for production materials if you’re using a trade skill that isn’t a modding one. There is a bit of a scarcity issue with armor/weapons but that’s natura and drives market price for them with a baseline being what they junk at. You aren’t buying those in most cases either so your profitability isn’t affected. 

Also, being able to set tariffs on foreign shops helps the game because it’ll let lower leveled/lower skill players actually be able to sell things in their shops in the faction territory at least without higher ranked/skill players being able to flood the market with cheaper prices. 

A tax on junk vendoring above say level 15 with a scalable value would allow for really more dynamic politics and economy stability/economic warfare ability but I can hear the screams against that already. 

Slander

At least with weapons and armour I think it's a non-issue. A level 50 character is going to be getting, and thus selling, gear close to level 50 while a level 20 character will sell shit closer to their level. Unless people spend forever farming low level areas for gear just to sell and I don't see that being super common.

Flipilaria

Almost every, if not every, economic system in Starmourn already has a huge cost barrier to entry. We don't need additional barriers of entry (such as tariffs and taxes) to more economic systems.

kamdian

That’s true, Saturnine. Unless you’re just wanting to screw over someone’s economy on purpose anyways. 

Every system has an -entry- cost barrier that serves as a mark sink. I’m talking about taxes that the faction collects (except for the Iota/Omni ones) as a means of mark revenue. Entry costs are a one-time thing except for designs I think, which have some continuing fees. Eventually there’s going to be more and more people that have paid the entry fee and orgs are still going to have to rely on cosmpiercer and donation income to actually get things done. Thus, taxes as a way to provide additional streams. And as with any capitalist system, just raise the cost of goods to cover the tax cost if you want. Your target consumers are not going to be newbies earning a measly amount of marks from just hunting.