Flowing economy

[Madison_Maru]

I had the thought of what if Elite had a new BGS aspect based around the economics of credit flow. The essentials of my idea is every system and maybe even faction has its own credit amount. This amount of credits makes it so that cash flow is a bit more tricky. The gist is whenever someone buys cargo and outfitting parts as well as ships from a station in a system the majority of the credits adds to an already set amount of numbers of how much the station has. Some of them might not be added as a sort of tax or perhaps a deduction to replace what you bought.

On the other side of the spectrum whenever you sell things such as exploration data, cargo, ships, and outfitting parts money gets taken from the system/station/faction amount. Exploration data could perhaps not take as much from them as they could trade it off for credits themselves. Should it get to a certain low point the system could enter a new BGS state of a recession. At this point payout for things begins to be reduced to save money, and prices would rise so that more credits can flow back into the balance.

Finally should it get too low the system could enter a Depression state, in which employment has sunk and a large variety of services are no longer offered. Stations might even get shut down entirely to the point of no one can get payed enough to manage it thus no one can land there. The only way to fix this is to flow money back into the market by buying cargo to sell at other systems. Should there be no station in the system anymore due to it getting shut down, a megaship will appear that can be landed at as an emergency service to restore the system with the help of generous pilots.

 

[GlitchedVision0101]

I think this would be an interesting addition to bgs gameplay and make the simulation even more realistic, giving commanders a good reason to venture outside of their home system and giving more of a reason to actually do free trade as missions are far more profitable.

 

[Jappards]

The problem with this is that very few are going to trade at a station with a reduced supply. This system is going to shut down a lot of stations, especially the outposts. It's a nerf to missions more than anything.

I think this would be an interesting addition to bgs gameplay and make the simulation even more realistic, giving commanders a good reason to venture outside of their home system and giving more of a reason to actually do free trade as missions are far more profitable.

Interesting =/= fun. Gameplay > Realism.

It would have the exact opposite effect as players are going to those stations which aren't shutdown or have a low supply.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

I think this would end up in the exact opposite way you'd want trade - or indeed any BGS transaction - to work.

Take a simplified version of it:
Station A sells Food for 900 credits and buys Machinery for 1100 credits
Station B sells Machinery for 900 credits and buys Food for 1100 credits.

A trader flies between stations A and B making the obvious trades.

This *should* be to the benefit of both stations - the factory workers get fed, and the farmers get their space-tractors. But what actually happens is that both stations lose 200 credits per tonne and eventually go bankrupt.

They could avoid this fate by dropping the price they're willing to pay for goods - if they bought at 850 credits rather than 1100, then they'd make 50 credits per tonne and trade would be good for them. But then, of course, no players would actually make the trade because they'd be losing 50 credits per tonne.

In a fully realised economy, of course, the station will sell the goods it buys for 1100 credits on to someone else in the system economy for 1500 credits, who will use those goods to produce other things with a value of 2000 credits, etc. Similarly, for bounty hunting, the faction may have issued a bounty of 250,000 on that pirate Anaconda, but it will have done so in the expectation that the economic value to it of safer shipping lanes will be higher than 250,000 credits. We don't see the side of the transaction where the faction makes a profit - now, because it's not implemented, in a realistic economy, because it involves economic actors planetside who we never meet - but we don't need to.

Frontier could track all of this with detailed internal bank balances, off-screen economic flows, etc. Or it could do what it currently does, which is to assume that if a faction is paying us X credits to do something it expects to get >X credits economic gain from that, and therefore actions carried out for a faction benefit that faction. The influence figures and economic state slider then represent - somewhat abstractly - how well the faction is doing in the system.

 

[GlitchedVision0101]

I think this would end up in the exact opposite way you'd want trade - or indeed any BGS transaction - to work.

Take a simplified version of it:
Station A sells Food for 900 credits and buys Machinery for 1100 credits
Station B sells Machinery for 900 credits and buys Food for 1100 credits.

A trader flies between stations A and B making the obvious trades.

This *should* be to the benefit of both stations - the factory workers get fed, and the farmers get their space-tractors. But what actually happens is that both stations lose 200 credits per tonne and eventually go bankrupt.

They could avoid this fate by dropping the price they're willing to pay for goods - if they bought at 850 credits rather than 1100, then they'd make 50 credits per tonne and trade would be good for them. But then, of course, no players would actually make the trade because they'd be losing 50 credits per tonne.

In a fully realised economy, of course, the station will sell the goods it buys for 1100 credits on to someone else in the system economy for 1500 credits, who will use those goods to produce other things with a value of 2000 credits, etc. Similarly, for bounty hunting, the faction may have issued a bounty of 250,000 on that pirate Anaconda, but it will have done so in the expectation that the economic value to it of safer shipping lanes will be higher than 250,000 credits. We don't see the side of the transaction where the faction makes a profit - now, because it's not implemented, in a realistic economy, because it involves economic actors planetside who we never meet - but we don't need to.

Frontier could track all of this with detailed internal bank balances, off-screen economic flows, etc. Or it could do what it currently does, which is to assume that if a faction is paying us X credits to do something it expects to get >X credits economic gain from that, and therefore actions carried out for a faction benefit that faction. The influence figures and economic state slider then represent - somewhat abstractly - how well the faction is doing in the system.

very valid points. the current system is the best we can do without crippling many places that never get visited otherwise