Balance costs… a gun shouldn’t cost more than a spaceship which has guns!

I think the old Elite 1984 lore had “credits” for things like starships and “units” for things like coffee. Shouldn’t the Odyssey gear be cheap compared to a ship? I mean, even a Taipan has engines, thrusters, sensors, a nuclear fusion reactor plus guns and it’s orders of magnitude cheaper than a level 3 space suit. It’s that weird? Shouldn’t it be adjusted to meet the payouts for foot soldier missions?
 
Maybe you should list out all your 'balanced' payouts for the game. That would simplify fdev putting them all in the game. Maybe put in examples of how it would work for a new starter and an established player with 20B. Good luck!
 
Shouldn’t it be adjusted to meet the payouts for foot soldier missions?
It more-or-less is, isn't it?

You can get money faster on foot than in a Sidewinder (edge cases like "Road to Riches" aside), so the suit is more expensive than the ship. You can get money faster in a Krait or Anaconda than on foot, so the ship is more expensive than even a fully upgraded suit and weapon set.

There were plenty of weird things like this with the pricing before Odyssey - compare the price of an Eagle hull with an equivalent tonnage of scrap metal from the market, for example. This one's just obvious enough that people regularly notice it.

Ultimately things are priced primarily around their in-game usefulness - otherwise you'd have on-foot missions paying out maybe a couple of credits each, and a single starter ship mission paying out enough to fully fund your entire on-foot arsenal forever. "Realistic", but not particularly good for the game.
 
Maybe put in examples of how it would work for a new starter and an established player with 20B. Good luck!
I don't think an established player with 20b credits will bat an eye when he spends 3m, 5m or 50m, or buys 10 spare prismatic shields of all sizes.

But OP does have a point.
1t of weapons cost a few thousand credits. we are talking a TON of weapons. Not just ONE.
So from an RP perspective, if I buy a ton of weapons, it is legally mine, I can do with them whatever I want. Why can't I crack the crate open and take out ONE weapon and ditch the rest?
Your average assault weapon weighs about 5-10 lbs, all the way up to the super heavy class .50 cal where one weighs 40-50lbs (or about 20-25kg) with ammo.
Let's go for the extreme case and say you bought the .50 cal and each weighs 25kg, means you got 40 weapons in the crate. Much better bargain than that piece you bought at pioneer supplies. Can't upgrade it? No worries, still cheaper until you can afford a gun that costs more than 10 sidewinders.

But in all fairness, OP is right, and this point has been raised a few times, where the price of a single weapon or suit is more than an entire spaceship.
Of course established players won't care much about the price tag, especially ones with FCs of their own, filled to the brim with fully engineered ships. Cases like these will always be present, where a new feature is introduced and established players can afford it right away, whereas new players would have to make it a goal to obtain.

At the same time, let's say we get new ships (yeah right lol).
How to price them?
In the line of old ships? Old players can buy them buy the dozen.
More expensive than the old ships? New players will just drool and post about it being too expensive.
The economy and the player base has grown old and there is plenty of wealth to go around. The game needs a money sink. Carriers are the only money sinks at this stage, and draining 25m/week of a player with billions will not make a major dent into their finances.
 
It is impossible to adjust the costs of ships to be realistic and in proportion to the cost of on foot equipment, as you will either reach scenario 1 - Over inflate the cost of ship equipment to scale them to the costs of current on foot equipment, making them much much more expensive and difficult to obtain, probably causing uproar in the community and accusations of an increase of Grind. Or Scenario 2 - Decrease the value of on foot equipment to make them scale with current ship equipment costs, making them extremely cheap and easy to obtain (especially when considering new players).

Fdev decided to create a Scenario 3 which is to not have Ship equipment and Foot equipment scaled and treat them as pretty much 2 separate economies. However it starts to break down and not make sense (like the common argument of "1t of Personal Weapons is X credits and a gun is Y credits".

What puzzles me is that Fdev is treating them as separate economies and the players are required to turn a blind eye to these inconsistencies, however didn't introduce a new separate on foot currency that isn't tradable for credits. On foot missions pay out in this new currency, everyone starts from 0 with the new currency, there is no situation of a veteran player buying all the equipment needed in 1 shop, there are no inconsistencies between Ship and foot economies as they are entirely separate and it provides some economy progression with on foot gameplay. In this case, Fdev could've started from scratch with a balanced economy for all on foot gameplay, while maintaining the ship economy. But instead it seems the devs decided to have one foot in the "treat them as 2 separate economies" camp and another foot in the "have it all as 1 economy" camp.

Ideally for a space sim, you would want everything to be part of 1 big global economy, however the nature of releasing the game as expansions will lead to issues like this as it is impossible for the devs to predict about the introduction of Odyssey and the details about the foot equipment economy while creating the original economy several years ago.

I have said economy too many times in this post ...
 
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I have said economy too many times in this post ...
I think the economy as such has left shore and hit an ice berg ages ago.

There is no economy as such.
An agri planet will produce goods, regardless of resources.
A refinery will produce metals without any input.
A high tech will always pump out the good, regardless how much or little of their demand is filled.

Player economies are just taking on credits with very little to none leaving.
Fuel is laughable. ($1500 to fully refuel a cutter or so)
Ammo prices are a drop in the ocean.
Mining ammo costs next to nothing in comparison what they yield.
Repairs are laughable, unless you are in the lower % of hull.

The only major expense is a rebuy.
So if you fly solo or with a little bit of care, anyone will end up with a massively positive balance. And we are talking MASSIVELY positive balance.
This has already lead to a massive inflation, thus making credits meaningless.
A new player can get into an Anaconda within a few hours these days, without too much hassle.

So really, the economy (or what you want to call it) doesn't exist. There is always demand without supply, there is always supply without demand, if they want to fix this, it would take a MAJOR overhaul of how the economy/stations work.
 
If they want to start balancing they need to start by removing all the credit fountains. tbh, I don't find the costs that ridiculous. The suits and weapons are capable of challenging ships in tiny packages. That must mean a higher level of miniturization and sophistication.
 
Effective rifle plate body armour in today's world costs upwards of $40-50k.
An armoured vehicle costs around the same.

Problem?

Don't discount the costs associated with minaturisation/portability of equipment. I could easily forsee a portable laser rifle being well in excess of the costs of a laser mounted to a ship with a commodity fusion reactor power source.

Or more relatably, my portable HF radio costs well in excess of a radio powered by a diesel generator.
 
Effective rifle plate body armour in today's world costs upwards of $40-50k.
An armoured vehicle costs around the same.

Problem?

Don't discount the costs associated with minaturisation/portability of equipment. I could easily forsee a portable laser rifle being well in excess of the costs of a laser mounted to a ship with a commodity fusion reactor power source.

Or more relatably, my portable HF radio costs well in excess of a radio powered by a diesel generator.
A lot of small ships are (in lore) ex surplus as well. Sidewinders and Eagles are no longer made but are supported by a second hand market in ED so having advanced weapons costing more is not too crazy at the bottom end. Its only when they get to Cutter level we'd need to call in the crazy squad :D
 
A lot of small ships are (in lore) ex surplus as well. Sidewinders and Eagles are no longer made but are supported by a second hand market in ED so having advanced weapons costing more is not too crazy at the bottom end. Its only when they get to Cutter level we'd need to call in the crazy squad :D
yeah, like...

a sidewinder in elite terms is the equivalent of my first car - a white vauxhall nova that cost all of 500 quid and drove about as well as you would expect for that price.
I would not trust a gun that cost less than that vehicle.
 
yeah, like...

a sidewinder in elite terms is the equivalent of my first car - a white vauxhall nova that cost all of 500 quid and drove about as well as you would expect for that price.
I would not trust a gun that cost less than that vehicle.
The vents inside a Sidewinder I swear are from an old Ford Fiesta.
 
Well, the 3 options for a change are making hand weapons stupidly cheap, ships ridiculously expensive or taking apart the whole credit structure and economy in the game and putting it back together again.

I think I could live with a high powered sniper rifle being expensive. Additionally, aren't weapons/suits purchases one off payments? I can't remember anyone ever mentioning rebuys when on foot.
 
Additionally, aren't weapons/suits purchases one off payments? I can't remember anyone ever mentioning rebuys when on foot.
Hmm, well I don't think you actually die - the Rescue Rangers find you and retrieve you. There is a fee, but I guess you'd have to be very poor to not afford it (I don't think I've ever looked at what it is).
 
Hmm, well I don't think you actually die - the Rescue Rangers find you and retrieve you. There is a fee, but I guess you'd have to be very poor to not afford it (I don't think I've ever looked at what it is).
Guess we need 1b+ credit suits and weapons so we get a comparable fee XD

Maybe for 5b you can get a suit that stores suits, and let's you fly through space like Iron Man.
 
I think the source of the problem is that they thought Odyssey on foot gameplay had to be a separate game (and buying the first basic suit/weapon had to be some kind of achievement)
 
I think the source of the problem is that they thought Odyssey on foot gameplay had to be a separate game (and buying the first basic suit/weapon had to be some kind of achievement)

I think the point is that Odyssey on-foot IS a separate game. The equipment cost differences are just one glaring example of how we now have two completely different games banged-together. I honestly wish they had launched their FPS game as a stand-alone.
 
Hmm, well I don't think you actually die - the Rescue Rangers find you and retrieve you. There is a fee, but I guess you'd have to be very poor to not afford it (I don't think I've ever looked at what it is).
You are rescued by the Pilots' Federation Rescue Rangers when you die in your SRV/ship as well.
 
I mean, even a Taipan has engines, thrusters, sensors, a nuclear fusion reactor plus guns and it’s orders of magnitude cheaper than a level 3 space suit.
The Taipan is a 3D printed set of thrusters and weapons. It doesn't have important things your suit has, like a life support, fully sealed canopy/helmet. Your suit also has sensors and thrusters.
 
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