Not so much about single player/multiplayer, although that's a factor. I'm talking about the number of markets, which in ED i believe is in the hundreds of thousands. :O
The static galaxy
- Thread starter Tikanderoga
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Not so much about single player/multiplayer, although that's a factor. I'm talking about the number of markets, which in ED i believe is in the hundreds of thousands. :O
They all still have to have their trade activities processed through the normal BGS anyway. Doing a bit more with the numbers they already have shouldn't have too drastic of an effect, but then it seems like the BGS servers are already running at above capacity trying to cope with Odyssey's BGS so they'd probably have to fix that first before doing anything else. Seems like they're unwilling to just spin up a few more servers like they claim they can, anyway.
Not much. Just depends on the level of detail and complications, and you could trade power for speed. The weekly maintenance might take more than 10 mins.
Deleted member 182079
D
Yeah, it'd probably require another server rack or two, just in case
@ OP, it is an incomplete simulation. Simulating a world realistically in all aspects is a tall order and, what is easily overlooked is asking yourself the question whether you really want that in a game. I've seen others with less realistic physics but more realistic economy and find that it actually brings out a lot of toxic behaviour which many seek to escape when they "flee" from the real world into a virtual one for a couple hours.
Well, i'm talking (and i thought we were talking) about a truly dynamic economy, like in X. Where even NPC ships have an impact on trade prices.
If we disregard NPC effects (even abstracted) just off player actions, then yeah, that would depend more on number of players than actual activities.
in what way?
What player requested feature made the game poorer?
The amount of commodities is great, but as you say, they serve really no purpose.
Isn't the idea of a placeholder to be replace with something at a later stage? I mean, the name says it itself... place... holder?
I reckon it would be doable, but it would require a fair bit more elbow grease than the game is currently getting just to get it patched up. Let alone implementing a new feature that would turn this static existence into an actual living breathing galaxy.
As for computing power. Couldn't require that much. A few if loops per station, could be run every hour for example per station. Many commodities are just ditch for cash anyway. Like 100% of all salvage. No loops to be run there. All the artifacts are just goods to be sold too.
Any kind of gem in its current state would serve no purpose other than mine and sell.
I see what you mea, yet many are here for immersion as well. And I reckon a properly simulated economy would make it more immersive for the traders among us.
Those who love exploring, bounty hunting or passenger hauling wouldn't be impacted. Or those who love blowing up Xenos.
Miners and traders however sure would see a benefit from it. Mining wouldn't just be all about mining was sells for the highest price, but actually mine/store/sell what is high in demand.
Looking at the current BGS, demand doesn't really change much. It doesn't make any difference if you sell 700t of food on a station with famine. You'd still make more selling 10t of platinum. People are starving, but hey, they will buy anything. If properly simulated, the 700t of food would fetch you a large sum of money, plus a massive reputation increase. And you wouldn't be able to sell platinum, even if the demand is at 0.
And what kind of toxic behaviour are you referring to?
I totally agree about immersion and I find the current game still has gaps and inconsistencies which should be addressed, but is pretty much among the best on the market already. Creating an economy is an entirely different beast and requires specific expertise. I was referring to a class of products like the ones listed here, their no. 1 was created with this in mind in the first place. I happen to know it quite well. It is liable for bringing out both the best and the worst in people and attracting a kind of opportunists I often want to get away from when playing a game. It is possible there also, but both as player and developer you get to deal with them. I don't know if this description leaves any impression at all, maybe one just needs to experience it. Think of what you like and don't like about the real world and if you want all of that modelled into your game, is what I'm trying to say. Scientific realism or human realism, which one you'd rather be immersed in.
The X-Series attempted it, but it didn't really work. Somewhere on the internet will be posts about buying vast numbers of M5 ships to permadock on key factories to stop them despawning before the player could develop their own economy to fill the gaps the NPCs didn't.
Given how sparse traders are in the Bubble we couldn't hold the economies up, even the core systems would be near permanently bust whilst the frontier systems would almost certainly starve. This would leave a telltale signature of traders which would make open trading even rarer than it is now.
Sometimes, it's realizations like this that make me think Elite Dangerous is less a game about space travel than it is a 3D picture of space itself that you just happen to be able to travel through... I guess that's one way of achieving immersion!
Anyway, Victoria 3 will be out next year so all will be well
EDIT: To contribute more than snide remarks, I will say that I recognize it would be a difficult thing to replace the current economy with a fully simulated one; but I think even a partially-simulated one would do wonders for interactivity in this game.
My understanding of real life business/trade is that it is based primarily on exploiting differences in production prices among regions; so start with that. For every market in game, have it look at the supply/demand prices of every other market within a set distance; then local prices adjust based on how those other markets' prices move. That way, as players satisfy demand or deplete supply in one market, it spills over into the surrounding ones. You could then get creative with things like having missions/activities that create some kind of "Blockade" BGS state in a given system so that it affects its surrounding markets less; or another BGS state that states "due to increased security, local traders feel more confident venturing out to further makerts", increasing the range of markets considered for local pricing. Stuff like that.
On the backend, code-wise, this would probably end up being just a giant spreadsheet; so nothing revolutionary here, just a lot of work to get implemented in the first place and to balance. So if you want to start small and not upset the apple cart too much, you could start with just the small markets at each Odyssey settlements and then go from there.
I'm mostly a combat player, so there might be something about trading currently that I'm missing. Anybody have anything positive to say about how trade works right now that they want to share?
Anyway, Victoria 3 will be out next year so all will be well
EDIT: To contribute more than snide remarks, I will say that I recognize it would be a difficult thing to replace the current economy with a fully simulated one; but I think even a partially-simulated one would do wonders for interactivity in this game.
My understanding of real life business/trade is that it is based primarily on exploiting differences in production prices among regions; so start with that. For every market in game, have it look at the supply/demand prices of every other market within a set distance; then local prices adjust based on how those other markets' prices move. That way, as players satisfy demand or deplete supply in one market, it spills over into the surrounding ones. You could then get creative with things like having missions/activities that create some kind of "Blockade" BGS state in a given system so that it affects its surrounding markets less; or another BGS state that states "due to increased security, local traders feel more confident venturing out to further makerts", increasing the range of markets considered for local pricing. Stuff like that.
On the backend, code-wise, this would probably end up being just a giant spreadsheet; so nothing revolutionary here, just a lot of work to get implemented in the first place and to balance. So if you want to start small and not upset the apple cart too much, you could start with just the small markets at each Odyssey settlements and then go from there.
I'm mostly a combat player, so there might be something about trading currently that I'm missing. Anybody have anything positive to say about how trade works right now that they want to share?
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I agree with all of your post, however having thought about it, there could be room for a tiered approach to the galactic economy. For systems that have a population threshold that allows for a group or individual to have an effect on it, a dynamic economy could be theoretically implemented up to a threshold where the economy may as well be static for the effect anyone could have on it.
NPCs would trade to ensure a sustainable economy, according to state, with the players then acting on that balance to varying degrees. There's no way a 100% player run economy would work in Elite, if I've understood your post correctly.
I think it's meant to simulate something fairly realistic (in a way) in that the economy is what it is and one or ten truck drivers don't really have a lot of effect on it. That's fine to me. It makes a hauler's life possible since the flows are pretty predictable.
What FDev could do is shake things up a bit now and then with the major factions having impacts that change the numbers around. Maybe sudden demand surges and bubble shortages that make hauling from outlying nebulas worth even considering. More variance from fringe to core systems. Rather than scripted pirate interdictions everywhere, those frontier systems pay well but you might be forced to fight where smooth and safe in the core bubble is easy work but less profit.
A Thargoid offensive that did more than make a station burn but maybe hammers refinery output in 1/3 of the bubble and leads to encounters when mining. That means downstream impacts to the tech and industry in that region. Big money to deliver out there now but you better be able to at least survive a hostile Thargoid hyperdiction or interdiction. Don't try to go there in that T9.
Yeah, it would be on rails to some extent but at least there would be something interesting happening in the overall universe.
What FDev could do is shake things up a bit now and then with the major factions having impacts that change the numbers around. Maybe sudden demand surges and bubble shortages that make hauling from outlying nebulas worth even considering. More variance from fringe to core systems. Rather than scripted pirate interdictions everywhere, those frontier systems pay well but you might be forced to fight where smooth and safe in the core bubble is easy work but less profit.
A Thargoid offensive that did more than make a station burn but maybe hammers refinery output in 1/3 of the bubble and leads to encounters when mining. That means downstream impacts to the tech and industry in that region. Big money to deliver out there now but you better be able to at least survive a hostile Thargoid hyperdiction or interdiction. Don't try to go there in that T9.
Yeah, it would be on rails to some extent but at least there would be something interesting happening in the overall universe.
So first you'd require persistent NPCs to carry out this trade (as they had in the X-series) which would add considerably to the CPU load as we saw in the X-series (The worst was systems selling Space Weed which could tank your FPS to a slideshow) or you have to simulate a background level of NPC activity with handwavium.
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Too much poo pooing on this forum lately. I love this idea, I'll sign up for the newsletter, please and thank you.
ah, I see what you mean now.
To be fair, gold selling is already in game and came with carriers REALLY hard. i was mining LTDs back in the day when I was talking to another miner in wing, and he told me he was mining to sell for credits. 5b was going for about $30 or so. Buyer docks at carrier, pays the real dough and you ferry the LTDs back and forth until desired level of wealth is reached.
I've helped my son with a few millions too. Dropped some LTDs at the time for him to scoop up and fly into the station to sell for big money, comes back with a collector and repeat. Obviously wasn't taking money for that.
I agree, a 100% player operated economy wouldn't work. However NPCs covering the 100% base, and player interactions would then be able to tip the scale to the left or right.
You blow up a few of the traders bringing in the crop harvesters, and you'd have less food output for example, leading to starvation.
Love that idea.
Even things like that would make trading interesting and liven up the galaxy, compared to the static rock it is now.