A rough concept for trade in Elite

[Darakin]

Hello.
A couple of days an idea crossed my mind. It will probably need some more thought but I wanted to post the general concept. It is about the trade aspect of the game. We just had a huge step in exploration, so I thought about trade.
A lot of players have by now quiet a lot of money and the most expensive ships.
In the real world, they would probably retire, instead of risking their life over and over and spend endless time in a cockpit.

We already have the options to buy crew members.
What about the idea to found your own business ?

You probably might need a way to store market goods for this.
And then be able to send hired personal to haul cargo from A to B.
Either with the ships you can buy anyway or special trade vessels.

There would of course be always be some risk involved and it should take them more time, than it would take you to do it yourself, so doing trade yourself does not become obsolete.
It is still a rough concept, I know that.
But Im curious about the response to this.
Kind regards

 

[JohannStrauss]

I support any new idea regarding trade and would like to provide to this thread if possible.
Founding our own business was always one of my favourites even with Elite 2 back then.

 

[Lestat]

This game is about you and your ship. Not you running FedEx company. There are games that you control a fleet of ships and earn money.

 

[Azmuth Divarchchron]

Hello.
A couple of days an idea crossed my mind. It will probably need some more thought but I wanted to post the general concept. It is about the trade aspect of the game. We just had a huge step in exploration, so I thought about trade.
A lot of players have by now quiet a lot of money and the most expensive ships.
In the real world, they would probably retire, instead of risking their life over and over and spend endless time in a cockpit.

We already have the options to buy crew members.
What about the idea to found your own business ?

You probably might need a way to store market goods for this.
And then be able to send hired personal to haul cargo from A to B.
Either with the ships you can buy anyway or special trade vessels.

There would of course be always be some risk involved and it should take them more time, than it would take you to do it yourself, so doing trade yourself does not become obsolete.
It is still a rough concept, I know that.
But Im curious about the response to this.
Kind regards

your idea will probably be implemented in some way shape or form when frontier implements player-owned stations down the road.

 

[Lestat]

your idea will probably be implemented in some way shape or form when frontier implements player-owned stations down the road.

I think if Frontier does Stations. I don't think you will earn Credits with Stations. But you be able to use what your Station Earns to Manage your station depending on what that system supplies and Demands.

 

[Azmuth Divarchchron]

I think if Frontier does Stations. I don't think you will earn Credits with Stations. But you be able to use what your Station Earns to Manage your station depending on what that system supplies and Demands.

Thats does seem like the most likely route frontier will take.

 

[Darakin]

One of my main thought was, to give players who work 40 hours a day and have family the opportunity to to do something while they cant actually play. Of course it must be balanced to players who actually take hours of time in the cockpit. And as i mentioned before, a certain risk should also be there to loose money.
A main part of Elite is the BGS and economy.
And it would fill up the systems with more "NPC" ships.
As I said, it is a rough idea. I dont expect to be implemented 1:1 but it is the feedback and suggestions that let a game grow.

If the majority thinks of it as crap, well then it is also fine by me.
All I can do is share my thoughts on the matter.

Kind regards

 

[Becky]

There would of course be always be some risk involved and it should take them more time, than it would take you to do it yourself, so doing trade yourself does not become obsolete.

The best thing about delegation is> once you've delegated the task once, you can delegate it over and over to many many people.
So whilst it might take one crew member Y% of time longer than you could do it yourself.
The amount of cargo that could be moved if you had three crew would be significantly quicker.

BUT, Elite Dangerous is about being in the cockpit of the ship and flying around like a madman.
What it isn't is "Elite Logistics Manager".

 

[znôrt]

A main part of Elite is the BGS and economy.

the bgs is just a state machine in which random factions play a zero sum game, and there is no real economy. you can see products and prices in markets but it's all just decoration, there's nothing below.

your idea is good, it's just that that's very far from what the game currently offers, and game economies are also very difficult to get right: it's not a good idea to attempt that without any experience. it has been suggested a lot of times, and some forumites just dread the sole idea because they think this is going to be eve, which in their imagination is the root of all evil, so snarky responses are to be expected.

 

[Arkadi]

your idea is good, it's just that that's very far from what the game currently offers, and game economies are also very difficult to get right: it's not a good idea to attempt that without any experience..

Agreed. If those employees would work around the clock also when the player is offline, this could soon create a massive credit overflow that could ruin game-balance (even more?).

So, one of many things to consider would be to make "offline trading" so danerous, that your employees will face certain demise by pirates or being enticed away by the competition if not attended to regularly.

To do this right seems to be very hard work in my eyes. I doubt Frontier will be able to implement something complex like this, without devoting a full season to this.

 

[comdr0303]

I doubt Frontier will be able to implement something complex like this, without devoting a full season to this.

Yeah they are so occupied with all the bobblehead demands .
I would love to see something like OP says, but give us more things to buy then just stupid ships.
I really don't see why we can't buy a terrain on a moon and begin building a city on it...it would be a nice money sink and that's the first thing we need now. Who to buy from? The pilots fed. for a start and then the power if there is one in the system.
We don't need an economy, just a thing like monopoly where we just buy things.
Just an idea!