Mining and the logic behind it ... ridiculous when you think about it.

[Thorvladius]

Let's make this quick and simple ...

Each cargo slot on this ship is supposed to equate to 1 metric ton, yes? Ok ... easy right?

So, when I mine, and I mine 1 metric ton of, lets say ... Platinum ... only 1 .... it should sale for, on current world markets ... over 50 Million credits(dollars) ...

So ... who put the market together in game? Are you telling me that Platinum is sooooooo abundant in the future, that 1 metric ton of it only costs 13K credits?

Now, this can go for any metal, and almost any item on the market. AkA ... one metric ton of medications for like 5k credits? Seriously guys .... I can not think of anyone who could not have built a better system for marketing and mining ... it's insulting to even create such a ... childish system ....

Don't get me wrong. I am sure all the fan boys will try to flame the post, and I don't care ... I bought the game, because it has SO much potential .... I do, hope it will grow and change for the better ...

I do not want to turn this into a Pro's/Con's type of post ... I only want to impose upon the devs that the market/mining system they have developed for this HUGE expanse of a game is very weak right now ... very weak. I hope it gets much more in dept and more realistic ...

This to include the "cargo" space on ships .... it is again, simple minded and was probably some afterthought to put into a "simi" finished product to put it out and get the game sold to create revenue ...

Anyway ... if these facets are not "known" issues, or I should say ... "considered an issue" then I think they should be considered issues ....

Now ... if you want ideas, let me know ... for all I know, you all have plans on developing and making these parts of the games WAY better than they are now (I would not have posted this, but all the stuff I seen on Youtube was talking about walking on planets and ships.... almost nothing with improving the games current poor systems) ... and doing so very soon ... but I will be more than happy to give ideas. I will take the time if so desired. But I sadly believe that if I can come up with some good ideas, then people being paid to do it should do way better than I can.

It's weird, as this may seem like a slam/bash at the game ... but in truth ... I really wish/hope this game will keep going, get better, and better ... it's a game that I could see myself playing a long time. However, at the moment, it's a rather great shell of a game... missing a lot of content and meat.

Anyway ... we'll see if I am alone, or if there are MANY other folks who feel this way.

Oh well ... here's hoping to the best!!

Thorvladius

 

[Raf von Thorn]

Hmm, i wonder what guys in the XV century would think about our economy... It wouldnt make any sense for them, they wouldnt understand how the hell a book can cost less than 2 villages for one? And water? Somebody is actually paying for bottled water? And what do you mean you cant buy a house for an ounce of pepper? This is , devs fix that ridiculous economy!

The problem is that people (including devs) have VERY limited imagination. The game is about humanity in XXXIV century, they would be much more different from us, than we are from people of VII century... Humanity is scattered in hundreds of thousands systems, each developing ts culture, science, IDEAS and MORALITY. Progress is NOT linear and most players cant think of future other way than "its now, but more".

OP post reminds me the french scientist, who has calculated in XIX century, that the Paris in year 2000 will drown in horse manure, as everyone needs a horse or carriage...

Forgive me, OP, but you are just as silly. And im not even going to talk about "i have better ideas"... With that limited mind?

 

[obliterator]

So ... who put the market together in game? Are you telling me that Platinum is sooooooo abundant in the future, that 1 metric ton of it only costs 13K credits?

A single f-22 raptor is worth about 375 000 000$. You can buy than 2 anacondas for that price. I think it's safe to assume that credits are simply worth more than modern currencies.

 

[DrakeAurum]

Let's make this quick and simple ...

Each cargo slot on this ship is supposed to equate to 1 metric ton, yes? Ok ... easy right?

So, when I mine, and I mine 1 metric ton of, lets say ... Platinum ... only 1 .... it should sale for, on current world markets ... over 50 Million credits(dollars) ...

What gives you the idea that 1 credit equals 1 dollar?

 

[Deleted member 38366]

--- Deleted ---

 

[Eloy]

Highmetal content planets. Metallic asteroids. Metals everywhere. Price drops. Quite logical.
And that´s only one example. What the frack do we know about economy, ressources and possibilities in 1300 years.

 

[CmdrDaymian]

A logical explanation would be that credits are disconnected from regular currency on planets. A Sidewinder, complete with a full array of weapons and modules and a full tank of fuel, costs 34,000(?) credits. That's a few minutes of work, one cargohold full of stuff from one station to another station a couple of jumps away.

If it's so easy to do this then everybody would be doing it. In game you can buy a fuel scoop for 375 credits. Imagine the technology stuffed in to something that scoops fuel from a star, stores it and makes it usable. Yet it costs only 375 credits. The logical explanation here is that pilots use different currency to the rest of the human population.

 

[Spike K]

Everything travels inside cargo cannisters. 2 slaves is about 200 lbs.. the rest is the weight of the can. 1800 lbs. so when you buy 1 ton of plat, you
only buy 200 lbs, the rest must be the weight of the can.
is this not important in the post subject?

\\///
oo
>
--
Spike553

 

[Choccy]

It's not just the systems used for mining, and trade, it's the point of the tasks themselves.

There is literally no economy of any kind (quite ironic when you see so many corporations in game, and a whole faction based on capitalism). Both are a completely pointless task.

There are a lot of commodities that are completely useless to anyone. Why would I decide to ship something that is going to be worth at most 150cr/t over something that is going to be worth 1300cr/t? Supply and demand is not really implemented at all, and no products rely on other base products being available. The X series (not latest game) did a great job of making an artificial economy in a space sim, and although it's probably no possible to have that kind of economy in an MMO, there has to be something better and doable than what we currently have.

What's the end goal of trading and mining? Surely it's not just to change a few numbers on a spread sheet, to change a few numbers in your 'bank balance'? What are consequences of boosting the economy of a station? Why even bother?


I think a lot of these points could be applied to the combat 'professions' in the game too, though I guess that's for another thread.


TL;DR I agree with you whloe heartedly OP, and then some.

 

[Soda Popinski]

The reason precious metals are valuable is there isn't a lot of it near the surface of the Earth. That's because the stuff is dense.

Asteroids don't have the same gravity as a planet, and won't have all the "precious" metals locked up near the core. Once we can mine asteroids from precious / rare earth metals, prices will drop substantially.

There have been 174,100 tons of gold mined throughout human history. That's a 21 meter cube of gold. What will happen when 100,000 tons of gold can be pulled out of an asteroid?

Hundreds of years ago, it took 6 hours or so of work to afford the light from one candle. Now, that same amount of light is millions of times cheaper.

 

[BillD]

Just in case you haven't noticed games are made up, fake, fantasy, alternate worlds. A good game is about balance not what is real. Some logic is required or it would make no sense to the player, but it does not need to be based on any real paradigms at all.
The game will develop as long as the haters don't scare off the potential players. But I am not to worried, I saw how simple Eve was when it first came out, and how that developed over many years and there is no comparison.
We are only 4 months into this new universe excluding beta.

 

[Walt Kerman]

Just in case you haven't noticed games are made up, fake, fantasy, alternate worlds. A good game is about balance not what is real. Some logic is required or it would make no sense to the player, but it does not need to be based on any real paradigms at all.
The game will develop as long as the haters don't scare off the potential players. But I am not to worried, I saw how simple Eve was when it first came out, and how that developed over many years and there is no comparison.
We are only 4 months into this new universe excluding beta.

Thats is no excuse to throw realism and sense out of the window. Sodas response was far more on point.

 

[Choccy]

Most of you are just reading the opening statement of the OP, and ignoring the rest of the meat in his post. The post was not all about the price of platinum.

 

[Archvillain]

Most of you are just reading the opening statement of the OP, and ignoring the rest of the meat in his post. The post was not all about the price of platinum.

I can't really find any meat in there. It starts off with some pretty obvious misconceptions from not thinking things through, and doesn't seem to get much better. (On top of that, it's well-known that mining gameplay is getting some attention in 1.3. The logic underpinning mining is ok; mining gameplay is more deserving of attention.)

 

[iain666]

Still, worst case you can sit back and count your money. After all, if you can predict what an economy 1300 years from now based on a fundamentally altered model of resource availability should look like with such uncanny accuracy then the NYSE and LSE prices over the next 6 months are presumably child's play and you've cashed in on that and are so rich that Croesus looks like a pauper...

 

[khaitom]

You should try real world trading if you think this is childish. No matter what you try to trade your facing competitors driving prices down and you still end up working for wages.

As soon as there's a hugely profitable product on a good route traders swarm there and drive prices down. Once it hits a reasonable level they disperse again.

Anyone could design a fictitious system where markets never stabilised but its not here.

Like a normal highstreet, the earnings per square foot (or space ton) are similar for most businesses. If one business has much higher returns then others copy the model until the splitting of profits drives returns back down to an average.

Why wouldn't galactic commodities be the same?

 

[metatheurgist]

Platinum is cheap because I can spend 5 minutes mining a rock and get 1T of the stuff. You know what doesn't make sense? Why do pirates risk life and limb shooting me for cargo? A mining laser and refinery are relatively cheap - they could spend 5 mins mining a rock and walk away with 1T of platinum. It's best not to examine game logic too closely.

 

[Thorvladius]

Hmm, i wonder what guys in the XV century would think about our economy... It wouldnt make any sense for them, they wouldnt understand how the hell a book can cost less than 2 villages for one? And water? Somebody is actually paying for bottled water? And what do you mean you cant buy a house for an ounce of pepper? This is , devs fix that ridiculous economy!

The problem is that people (including devs) have VERY limited imagination. The game is about humanity in XXXIV century, they would be much more different from us, than we are from people of VII century... Humanity is scattered in hundreds of thousands systems, each developing ts culture, science, IDEAS and MORALITY. Progress is NOT linear and most players cant think of future other way than "its now, but more".

OP post reminds me the french scientist, who has calculated in XIX century, that the Paris in year 2000 will drown in horse manure, as everyone needs a horse or carriage...

Forgive me, OP, but you are just as silly. And im not even going to talk about "i have better ideas"... With that limited mind?

This post was directly focused on "known" resources ... minerals, metals and foods .... nothing about the different technologies of the century.

In the 15th century, it would have been very plausible to assume that such items would still contain a very similar value through time ...

What your French scientist did not take into account in his ridiculous comment was the changing technology around him ...

Now, more than ever, particular metals have value that go well beyond how they are used as a means to back currency ... so we can assume as they have over the past century, that they will maintain value, if not greatly increase ...

If you cant see this simple conclusion and how the amounts(considering the scarcity of them in reality) do not begin to function in current game system, then you are probably a fan boy who donated 1K Pounds on kickstarter and will defend this game no matter what instead of offering up criticism that might warrant change in the future ...

And so you know, the game Lore is set ... you can read it as I have ... they made it, they created it, and I read it ... then from that reading, you will realize ... not much has changed within the human psychology ... despite it not giving great details, you can come to this conclusion.

And you tell me... after how many years of civilization ... you can make your choice on how long, some will argue who and when the first civilization cropped up, but no matter what, just how much have we changed? When you get to the root of humanity .. have we really changed? Huge technological advances, yes ... but what about humanity? That was one of your counter arguments ... that they would be somehow so very different from now? History has shown, that we dont tent to change much in that category ...

There are better ways to go about it ... and this current system is lacking, no matter how much you may defend it.

 

[DrakeAurum]

Now, more than ever, particular metals have value that go well beyond how they are used as a means to back currency ... so we can assume as they have over the past century, that they will maintain value, if not greatly increase ...

Metals' cost lies not only in their usefulness but also in their rarity and the difficulty involved in extracting and refining them. We only know how rare such metals are on Earth, not in the universe in general - and as for the diffilculty of extracting and refining them, in the course of the next millennium that could have changed far more radically than the change from horses to automobiles on the streets of Paris.

So your own viewpoint is based upon assumptions no more firmly grounded than those of that French scientist.

 

[Crank Larson]

Hmmm... There are many aspects of this game that could do with improvement (and I am sure they will get it), but I don't think trading is one. The markets work, you can make good money trading, and given the availability of resources (there are a huge amount in the galaxy), the prices work ok too.