True economy: Will it ever come?

[Mikkel Toxwenius]

As of now in ED demand and price of commodities does not rise/fall above/below certain thresholds. But will we ever see a true economy in ED? Will there ever be real supply/demand with resulting real fluctuating prices?

Right now low priced commodity items such as algae, grain, hydrogen fuel is pretty much a joke. Who in their right mind ever trades grain or algae when the best profit from it is at best no more than a few hundred credits per tonne? With such low profits I can't think anyone trading in it meaning that any demand for it can't reasonably be met. Now in a normal working economy prices should in such a situation soar upwards until traders saw enough profit in it to meet demands.

Anything is only worth as much as its purchaser is willing to pay for it, nothing less nothing more. Algae, grain etc being considered "low valued" items is ridiculous really. Let me repeat: Anything is only worth as much as its purchaser is willing to pay for it, not less not more. It doesn't matter if the item is gold, platinum, algae, grain, computer components, whatever. In a real economy items have no value by themselves. Prices are purely dictated by supply and demand (and of course supply and demand is influenced by unknown amounts of known and unknown variables). If no one delivered any food to that barren rocky planet and it's orbiting station with little to zero capability to produce any food of its own the people and merchants there would be desperate to get food and would be willing to pay accordingly. Even if the station/planet had some capability to produce food it would probably be much much more expensive to do than just importing from an agricultural world. If the people and the merchants of a planet/station could not afford (if for example they were not turning enough profit from their own business) to offer buy prices that traders found profitable enough to sell their, well, we should see that planet/station either have its government subsidizing purchases or enter a recession and eventually die out.

Will a true economy ever happen? I kind of expected a true economy at some point, but as time goes by I fear it's not gonna happen. I am sorry if this question has already been asked and answered elsewhere.

 

[Shadowdancer]

There supposedly is an economy. Thing is just, "us commanders" are only getting a pittance. The biggest volume is dealt with by simulated streams of goods a few orders of magnitude beyond what the players could possibly handle; this has (or at least should have according to some designs) an influence on generated AI traffic.

 

[Titus Balls]

There supposedly is an economy. Thing is just, "us commanders" are only getting a pittance. The biggest volume is dealt with by simulated streams of goods a few orders of magnitude beyond what the players could possibly handle; this has (or at least should have according to some designs) an influence on generated AI traffic.

So basically us commanders are the plebs and the AI are like the bankers - a very accurate simulation of real life then

 

[Janichsan]

Right now low priced commodity items such as algae, grain, hydrogen fuel is pretty much a joke. Who in their right mind ever trades grain or algae when the best profit from it is at best no more than a few hundred credits per tonne?

It's easy to forget where you came from, isn't it? Four words: 1000 cr starting capital.

 

[Mikkel Toxwenius]

There supposedly is an economy. Thing is just, "us commanders" are only getting a pittance. The biggest volume is dealt with by simulated streams of goods a few orders of magnitude beyond what the players could possibly handle; this has (or at least should have according to some designs) an influence on generated AI traffic.

Obviously there is some sort of economy in ED, I wasn't postulating the contrary. But the economy is very far from true economy. My mainpoint is that why would anyone (player or NPC) ever trade in these low priced commodities, like algae, grain, hydrogen fuel, if profits are so very meager? It makes no sense. Those low profits can't realistically, not by a long shot, support those "biggest volumes" of simulated streams of goods.

 

[Shadowdancer]

So basically us commanders are the plebs and the AI are like the bankers - a very accurate simulation of real life then

I guess it's necessary to do it that way, simply because there aren't very many players compared to the size of the game universe. If players were significant, the economy would just cease to exist.

 

[Mikkel Toxwenius]

I guess it's necessary to do it that way, simply because there aren't very many players compared to the size of the game universe. If players were significant, the economy would just cease to exist.

Not at all, FD could let NPC traders trade in a realistic way. Of course if you only based the economy on the player base( a few hundred thousand people) and not on NPC's simulated or not you wouldn't even have enough people to support an economy the size of a small third world nation.

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Anyway, the question I actually asked was whether we will ever see a true economy in ED?

 

[Shadowdancer]

Your question is rather "will there be really huge freighters", since those would make bulk cargo interesting. Load a couple tonnes of gold, a bit of liquor, and, oh, just maybe thirty thousand tonnes of grain and fifty thousand hydrogen fuel please. Having huge margins on those goods isn't a very "real economy" thing.

The answer to that one is so far "not for players", with the Anaconda being the biggest playable ship for the announced future.

 

[Mikkel Toxwenius]

Your question is rather "will there be really huge freighters", since those would make bulk cargo interesting. Load a couple tonnes of gold, a bit of liquor, and, oh, just maybe thirty thousand tonnes of grain and fifty thousand hydrogen fuel please. Having huge margins on those goods isn't a very "real economy" thing.

The answer to that one is so far "not for players", with the Anaconda being the biggest playable ship for the announced future.

I understand what you're trying to say with those big freighters. I assume that you thereby also mean to say that FD right now at least simulates that there is huge freighters, many many times bigger than anacondas supplying low priced commodities with low profit margin. With such big freighters I agree that profit margins on these commodities would be kept down as demands would be met while allowing for justifiable profits for the traders using these super freigthers. So are we just pretending that these huge freighters are here? And are we expecting them to enter the game at some point?

 

[nightwraith]

In my opinion, until you can create player demand for commodities, you won't see the economy change meaningfully from its current state. That isn't to say this background Sim isn't real and doing its thing. It is to say that most players don't care about what an AI does in the background, out of sight. If players had a reason to 'order' so many tons of something, then that's a demand that others could work to meet and would feel far more dynamic than what's in place now.

 

[Yokai]

The commodities that aren't profitable for PC traders are part of the background simulation. They are partly for RP flavor, partly to provide goods that starting newbies with only 1000 cr can use as training wheels, and partly to drive the background station/system states that form another important aspect of dynamic change and mission opportunities for pilots.

 

[Mikkel Toxwenius]

The commodities that aren't profitable for PC traders are part of the background simulation. They are partly for RP flavor, partly to provide goods that starting newbies with only 1000 cr can use as training wheels, and partly to drive the background station/system states that form another important aspect of dynamic change and mission opportunities for pilots.

Yeah, well, perhaps I dream of a sort of EVE economy in a ED universe. That may not be what others like. Personally I see grain etc as useless filler content not really serving a gameplay purpose beyond initial trade training for newbies.

 

[Rubbernuke]

Trading metals in fringe systems seems to work. I stripped several refineries of metals and swamped a local station with them for 1500Cr/t, but after a while the demand just collapsed (down to 300Cr).

 

[Shadowdancer]

I assume that you thereby also mean to say that FD right now at least simulates that there is huge freighters, many many times bigger than anacondas supplying low priced commodities with low profit margin. […] So are we just pretending that these huge freighters are here? And are we expecting them to enter the game at some point?

No idea honestly, but I could imagine things like blockade scenarios where, akin to the current warzones, players get to attack or defend interdicted freighters. There already are capital ships with nice jump-in animations and surrounding dynamics, so there's every chance that will be expanded.

Right now though, those goods are just magically shifted between stations.

 

[Frog]

There supposedly is an economy. Thing is just, "us commanders" are only getting a pittance. The biggest volume is dealt with by simulated streams of goods a few orders of magnitude beyond what the players could possibly handle; this has (or at least should have according to some designs) an influence on generated AI traffic.

Unfortunately, this is not how it is working at the moment. AI "traffic" is purely random. The goods they carry are not bought at a station and never get sold at another station, they are just staffage that flies around aimlessly. It has been claimed by developers that in the background AI trading is simulated, but this does not affect the NPCs you can see in game.

 

[Mikkel Toxwenius]

Trading metals in fringe systems seems to work. I stripped several refineries of metals and swamped a local station with them for 1500Cr/t, but after a while the demand just collapsed (down to 300Cr).

Really? You were able to do that singled handedly? That's surprising, taking into account that you, as just one single player, are a very very tiny part of the simulation.

 

[Shadowdancer]

Really? You were able to do that singled handedly? That's surprising, taking into account that you, as just one single player, are a very very tiny part of the simulation.

Tiny economies have tiny, sensitive markets

 

[Mikkel Toxwenius]

Tiny economies have tiny, sensitive markets

Well of course I don't know the particulars of said station/system. Maybe that fringe system/station only had 1000 inhabitants, compared to most other systems having from 100.000's to billions. In which case it would make sense that one trader with a type 9 could affect a 1000 person economy hugely.

 

[Talarin]

I don't disagree with your sentiment, but I think FD's enforcing of particular constraints on ranges of prices is actually pretty sensible (in that it stops weird behaviour appearing unexpectedly). The economy does react to supply and demand in the game; there was a period of "great depression" for player traders early on because FD let the AI carry a lot more stock than it does now which effectively fulfilled most supply and demand in the game.
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I do think that the current set-up of pricing, total supply and total demand is illogical and could do with tweaking though. At the moment it doesn't feel to me like the supply price reflects lower costs of production at a particular planet or that demand pricing reflects what a buying economy is prepared to pay for it.
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There's too much in the way of valuable goods stockpiled at selling stations - and that's one of the reasons why those low value commodities should have a place in the game. Three or four traders (including NPCs) lifting a couple of hundred tonnes each of Gold out of a planetary economy should create a supply shortfall and that just doesn't happen enough yet.
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For example: Fruit & Veg pricing at an Industrial station. I would expect to see a reasonably high price (as it would reasonably be a luxury of sorts) but low total demand (as only richer people are prepared to pay for it). What we actually see is a low price and high demand value - which seems wrong to me.

 

[Shadowdancer]

For example: Fruit & Veg pricing at an Industrial station. I would expect to see a reasonably high price (as it would reasonably be a luxury of sorts) but low total demand (as only richer people are prepared to pay for it). What we actually see is a low price and high demand value - which seems wrong to me.

They are offering to buy a lot at the price they are willing to pay, sounds reasonable to me.

I generally agree that market values look weird sometimes though.