"They're excited, but poor."- Ilyos (August 2019)
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Space Trading Ideas and Feedback
So! I just spent maybe 4-ish hours flying around fulfilling the stesium orders all over the game. My profit was approximately 1000 marks. With that out of the way, I've been gathering some ideas that may improve the 'trucking' side of Starmourn.
MARKET ORDERS
The NPC orders are incredibly prone (still) to being split up into little 1- to 2- piece orders scattered across a lot of planets and stations. A lot of the time is spent just flying from one location to another, for very little gain.
Perhaps the algorithms and whatnot could be reviewed, and make NPC orders be at least 10 units each. Hopefully more!
RESOURCE SCARCITY and USAGE
The raw material availability should not be pegged to how much of that material is present in the game. I understand the concern regarding stockpiling; however, it must be taken into account that resources in Starmourn already carry a hefty production cost, plus storage fees.
I think there's a lot of mechanics already in place to discourage heavy stockpiling, so limiting the availability of gas clouds and mineable asteroids just limits how many people can feasibly participate in that part of the game. This is decidedly not good, as plenty of players were drawn to that aspect of Starmourn. Let the players actually play with the economy.
TAXES
At the moment, taxes are a static 3% of the refinery or autofactory cost, per in-game year. Whilst mark sinks are indeed needed to prevent MUDflation, I think there are plenty of better solutions.
One is to have a composite tax: 1% of the refinery/autofactory cost, plus 1% of the cost of all units produced using that refinery or autofactory. This will still carry a noticeable drain (1k marks at full price per building) if left idle for the whole year, and potentially more if it proves to be a popular spot.
I'll add in more (or other people can!) once I finish with my trading route. Still 2 hours to go, by my estimate.
Mereas Eyrlock
"They're excited, but poor."
- Ilyos (August 2019)
"They're excited, but poor."- Ilyos (August 2019)
2
Comments
Let's see how Stesium orders shape up now that most of the "old" clutter has been cleared.
- Ilyos (August 2019)
SHIPFORGE SUPPLIES
I know the intent of the Shipforge selling basic stuff (astromechs, repairkits, etc.) is so that there's some way of obtaining them if, for some reason, no players are selling or manufacturing them.
However, I think they're still priced too low. The thing is, if I'm somewhere near Hiza (on the southeastern edge of the STARCHART), I'd rather pay a few more marks to get stuff out of SF SUPPLIES than make the long flight back to Omni Station.
There's two ways (separately or done together) that this can be remedied.
First, have SF SUPPLIES pull first from the current market supply of...SUPPLIES. For example, if Bob is selling 100 repairkits for 40 marks at Omni, and I buy 50 repairkits for 50 marks from SF SUPPLIES at the Ixodon Industries Starforge (the station at the Hiza zone), then those 50 repairkits will be removed from Bob's stock in exchange for 2000 marks (50 *40). 2500 marks will be deducted from my account; the difference of 500 will be removed from the game.
Second, dramatically increase the price of SF SUPPLIES items, maybe double or triple. Make it so that it becomes a viable business to simply move supplies around Starmourn Sector's stations, rather than just manufacturing them. Using the same example as above, let's say Bob manufactures repairkits at Omni and sells them for 40 marks. Xylem, the intrepid space trucker, buys these 40-mark repairkits and moves them to Ixodon Industries Starforge for sale at 50 marks. I, the rascal pilot, now have 3 options: to fly back to Omni and get the cheapest repairkits for 40 marks, buy from Ixodon's SF SUPPLIES for 150 marks, or just buy the repairkits that Xylem's selling at Ixodon for 50 marks.
- Ilyos (August 2019)
Someone on Discord voiced out an idea of random abundance and scarcity. Like, maybe a span of three years wherein stesium becomes rare. Or a short two-month period when titanium generates out the wazoo.
This has the potential to clear out stockpiles, or infuse a bit of supply if that resource runs low for some reason (peer titanium).
- Ilyos (August 2019)
Right now there is a tonne of stesium, magnaril, astrium, elessium, and ultarine out there i would love to harvest. but there is no market and there won't; be as things are. basically, there's no room for a profit margin for everyone involved when you are competing against shipforge, and the npc sink aren;t worth it, and often aren;t there. i have no incentive to refine stesium to very occasionally sell it off two at a time.