Why can't we buy manufactured materials? I understand why we can't buy raw materials such as Alexanderite, Painite and such. And I also understand that we can't buy data. But manufactured materials? They don't appear out of thin space. Someone manufactures them. So why does no one sell them? I can even understand having to pay retail prices (say 3 or 4 times the wholesale that ship manufacturers pay),. I mean they do buy them in bulk.. But we really should be able to purchase them at retail prices. And before you say thee are some things that the common citizenry can't buy, I'll remind you that uranite and uranium are available for purchase with credits in-game. So we can't buy the stuff they make ships out of, but we can buy the stuff they make atomic bombs out of? Say what? How does that make any kind of sense?
Manufactured Materials
- Thread starter KellyR
- Start date
So no answer. Even though it takes rare raw materials (which no one is going to sell to the public anyway because the market won't bear the price) to get a module engineered to grade 5. I love this game, but some of the inconsistencies are just totally outlandish. Hyperdrive, FTL cruise, shields, even munitions that automatically detonate if a target ins't struck in a certain length of time, sure. But thinking economics and markets are going to change this much? Unbelievable. Were I rich with millions of dollars in the bank, I could buy every every manufactured part that comprised an automobile or even a warship. But they think we won't be able to do the same in 1100 or 1200 years? 
The best (or, to be pedantic, least-bad) explanation, lore-wise, is probably that the ED universe is a little bit "Mad Max" and, as such, there's a finite supply of technology available and the only way to obtain yours is to take it away from somebody else, or pick up stuff others have left lying around.
If, OTOH, you're asking what the practical reason is; 'cos game.
If, OTOH, you're asking what the practical reason is; 'cos game.
I was under the impression that these materials are sub-components of larger systems. The graphical representation of some of them when you target them are of broken items, so it's like they come from larger sub systems. Thermic alloys wouldn't be a commodity, but they would exist in some specific modules.
So if I were the owner/CEO etc of a company that manufactured conductive wiring, you say I wouldn't want to sell as much of it as I could? Human nature won't change that much in a mere 1200 years.
And what are they going to do if the manufacturer starts selling to the public? Stop purchasing these things? Then how will they build their ships that they sell? And how will the module manufacturers manufacture their modules they sell if they don't buy the sub-components?
Were I rich with millions of dollars in the bank, I could purchase the silicon wafers which make up the chips we use in computers. I could purchase the plastic that goes into manufacturing a keyboard. I could even purchase the liquid that goes into manufacturing an LCD display. We are talking about manufactured items, not raw minerals.
If it can be bought, it becomes a commodity and then ........ you lose it if you are shot down !
That would be fine with me. Never did understand how you could carry 200 focus crystals and all the other manufactured material and then have it all show up again after the re-buy screen.If it can be bought, it becomes a commodity and then ........ you lose it if you are shot down !
You can't buy them because they've given you so much money that it's not worth anything any more. Materials exist to enforce a rate of progression that credits no longer can.
There is no rational in-game explanation for it, just as there is no rational in-game explanation for how the credit supply can increase by orders of magnitude without prices following suit.
There is no rational in-game explanation for it, just as there is no rational in-game explanation for how the credit supply can increase by orders of magnitude without prices following suit.
I sat down too quickly once and my 100 focus crystals in my underpants became 100 flawed focus crystals !
Simple answer: it's a game, with materials as alternative currencies.
Flimsy rationale: Engineers are like "petrolheads" who do dangerously unorthodox things to cars. If you take your Ford Sierra to your local garage and ask for bulletproof glass and a nitromethane injector for the engine, you might be told about the slightly deranged hermit who lives in a disused factory and does stuff like that. But he might need double-glazing panels and a blood pump.
Flimsy rationale: Engineers are like "petrolheads" who do dangerously unorthodox things to cars. If you take your Ford Sierra to your local garage and ask for bulletproof glass and a nitromethane injector for the engine, you might be told about the slightly deranged hermit who lives in a disused factory and does stuff like that. But he might need double-glazing panels and a blood pump.
Can you imagine the loss of fun in this game if we COULD buy them?
Credit inflation being what it is, being able to buy them would ruin the dynamic. Plus there's Dav's Rest.
Credit inflation being what it is, being able to buy them would ruin the dynamic. Plus there's Dav's Rest.
What about Dav's Rest? Never been there that I can remember. Does it have some kind of special item that's sold nowhere else?
As for progression, I have no real love for the dynamic. I thought this engineering stuff (at least for combat) was ill advised in the first place. Maybe increasing FTL range, but other than that? It broke the game in my opinion. And it virtually killed PvP. While it is opinion that it broke the game, it definitely took PvP down to just about nil.
It hasn't broken the game, but the imbalance between friend and foe has become extreme.
You can't pay a mechanic in Venezuela with Bolivars because Bolivars aren't worth anything. Oh, they have an official rate of exchange, and the government has tried fixing prices, but that doesn't change the fact that the Bolivar has an inflation rate of a million percent and aren't worth the paper they are printed on. Thus, people use Dollars or Bitcoin, or barter (perhaps even more parts that required to fix your vehicle), or whatever.
Similar premise to Elite. Why would anyone in the Elite setting exchange things that have actual scarcity for a currency that does not?
I think this answer comes closest to nailing it, for both the "why did they design it this way?" and "what's the in-universe explanation?" reasons.
I would also note that many of the manufactured materials, especially the high-grade ones, suggest in their names that they are highly proprietary, classified, trade secret, or otherwise controlled technology. So it's not that you can't buy them, it's that you can't buy them. And apparently neither can the fantastically rich engineers, which is why they need us scrubs to collect their toys for them. Although that definitely calls into question the nature of the material traders.
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The developers chose 3 different types of non-commodity materials to create another form of currency. Changing one of those to a commodity just removes one of them from the list and adds another useless commodity. It's not like the developers thought "let's do some form of engineering where the player has to unlock the engineer to gain the ability to upgrade modules" then thought "We have to use military supercapacitors though, and those sound like commodities so hopefully there's no problem with that". They just created 3 groups and named the groups.
Why does a HGE site contain HG mats, a degraded site contains lower grade mats, but an encoded site doesn't contain encoded mats?
Why does a HGE site contain HG mats, a degraded site contains lower grade mats, but an encoded site doesn't contain encoded mats?
This is why I say I would like to see the engineers return to a more shadowy, distant existence where we can have a career where basically we do some of their bidding, go after certain targets that could be getting close to figuring them out, or perhaps snuffing out the competition in other systems. Imagine another engineer pops up not far from Qwent who does basically what Qwent does. Qwent might want us to take him fishing.