General FC: Selling Engineered Modules/Ships

[Tividar]

So this was suggested in the FC Beta. Given that everyone gets Horizons with the Odyssey release, can we make this happen?

Downside:
Some people might not do the Engineering Grind
Some people might not do the Guardian Tech Grind

Upside:
Player demand-driven economy not directly tied to or influencing BGS states.
A reason to visit Fleet Carriers

 

[STAR O You NO]

That would break the game so quickly.

For example a new player foes a day of mining get let's say 300+mill and buys a fully engineered anaconda or are you doing the full cost of the ships, modules, engineering materials and time of said player?

If so corvettes and cutters would sell for 2billion upwards

 

[Tividar]

That would break the game so quickly.

For example a new player [d]oes a day of mining get let's say 300+mill and buys a fully engineered anaconda or are you doing the full cost of the ships, modules, engineering materials and time of said player?

If so corvettes and cutters would sell for 2billion upwards

The idea as it was originally presented is that you do all the work and expend all the credits to acquire a ship and then can sell that specific ship via the Shipyard. I'd expect most people would charge through the nose for a fully engineered Cutter. I don't actually remember how long it took me to Grind [Duke/Guardian Tech/Engineering], but for the sake of argument/easy math, say 100 hours to access and acquire all the non-credit related materials for the Minning Cutter I currently use. EDSY says I spent 166,151,366 credits (with 17.1% discount). Figure 250m credits per hour as a reasonable miner's profit rate to convert time spent resource farming to credits and you get something like 25,166,151,366 CR with the vast majority of that price being for the engineering.

I don't see this as game-breaking at all. In practice, you'd pull the whole process of engineering and gathering resources into the player-driven economy. The worst case situation I can see is a well established player kitting out a fully engineered ship and selling it for cheap. Simple economics limits the the scope of dumping engineered ships.

 

[CMDR Cknarf]

I would immediately sell some of my upgraded ships to my IRL friends who gave up on the grind years ago. Cheap as possible, even if its a game-established minimum price.

Even if it's not ships, being able to trade modules and materials would be cool.

 

[Maolagin]

It's an interesting idea, and certainly appealing to have some way of profitably disposing of excess engineered ships and modules. However, I tend to suspect that this would be sufficiently attractive to "gold seller" profiteers that FDev would be reluctant to go there. I can readily imagine an organized group that pays top credits for used engineered ships, turns around and sells those ships through shady forums for real money, uses part of the profits to pay miners to keep the operation going. Most other MMOs that allow player-to-player trades are plagued with this sort of thing, and all that's saving ED from it right now (now that FC trading exists) is that commodities are still either worthless enough, or annoying enough to convert into currency, that it's not yet worth it.

 

[Tividar]

It's an interesting idea, and certainly appealing to have some way of profitably disposing of excess engineered ships and modules. However, I tend to suspect that this would be sufficiently attractive to "gold seller" profiteers that FDev would be reluctant to go there. I can readily imagine an organized group that pays top credits for used engineered ships, turns around and sells those ships through shady forums for real money, uses part of the profits to pay miners to keep the operation going. Most other MMOs that allow player-to-player trades are plagued with this sort of thing, and all that's saving ED from it right now (now that FC trading exists) is that commodities are still either worthless enough, or annoying enough to convert into currency, that it's not yet worth it.

Under the heading of "this is why we can't have nice things."

Given the public/private/open structure of the game, I don't know that it really matters to my game-play if third-party transactions are thing.

If they are, a direct ARX to CR option pretty much kills that market. Hell, I'd throw $5 USD a month to cover Carrier Maintenance costs, particularly if the revenue stream improved development and bug-fixing.

 

[Maolagin]

If they are, a direct ARX to CR option pretty much kills that market. Hell, I'd throw $5 USD a month to cover Carrier Maintenance costs, particularly if the revenue stream improved development and bug-fixing.

Sure, they could do that, but that would be (rightly) decried as introducing pay2win like any other freebie game. Frontier has previously promised that they specifically won't do this.

I suspect this problem is a general feature of direct player-to-player trading. Which suggests that other models might be viable still. For instance, if Frontier established an in-game "used ship lot" where players could put ships up for auction - a properly designed auction house could ensure that neither the buyer or seller can give their "friend" an artificially good deal - that could provide an outlet for the folks who want to make a career out of Engineer-powered crafting.

 

[Tividar]

I suspect this problem is a general feature of direct player-to-player trading. Which suggests that other models might be viable still. For instance, if Frontier established an in-game "used ship lot" where players could put ships up for auction - a properly designed auction house could ensure that neither the buyer or seller can give their "friend" an artificially good deal - that could provide an outlet for the folks who want to make a career out of Engineer-powered crafting.

I get that any sort of CR/$$ crossover is pretty much anathema. I'm not a purist on the subject - i think its a matter of degree, but its not a hill I'm willing to die on. I do agree that any P2P activity is going to run up against this basic problem though. Even with an auction model, as soon as you have CR as something measurably valuable and as long as you have an ability to trade CR-valued items in game between players, you create a demand and the ability to satisfy that demand through third-party transactions.

Thing is, ED has a reasonably robust moat protecting against this sort of thing.

Cost of game, plus cost of hardware plus some crazy amount of man-hours to unlock everything. The game is not casual friendly - which directly impacts how viable the farming activity can be. I have no real idea how long it's taken me to unlock and engineer my stuff. I've got about 1,700 hour into this game, with almost everything unlocked (missing a few guardian tech weapons and the colonia engineers). I've got maybe half a dozen ships that are about 80% engineered. I certainly didn't follow an optimal path to unlocking, but I expect I'm within an order of magnitude.

 

[Tividar]

Imagine the howls of glee from the pirate community if Frontier found a technically feasible method requiring gold[CR]-sellers to mine in open. Instant content.