I was talking to others today in the Galactic Academy discord about trading, and i thought about how to make a market dynamic, fluid, while creating a sense of supply and demand.
How do we make a market dynamic and fluid?
I know the term "crafting" gets thrown around a lot here, but most of these things are already in the game. Unlike actual crafting, they arent crafted, they are just generated. My proposal is we take these commodities and have them crafted by the station to make a product that is then exported to another station for more crafting or consumption, crafting and consumption both have the same output.
Crafting and consumption will be "destroy" the host product to produce something else. Whether an industrial station is crafting palladium into superconductors or an agricultural station is consuming atmospheric processors to boost fish productions. This gives a real sense of what we already have, selling a commodity high in supply to something high in demand, it is different because said commodity is actually being destroyed and created, not just... there.. This also means that after an amount of time, the more material you feed into a station the less it will want it over a production time to create items, and the more the station makes, the less they will sell them for after a while.
This also eliminates the boring 2 station route and mindless trading because you actually have to be mindful of resources you are distributing to a station, too much platinum and the demand sinks, but the superconductors will be in plentiful amounts (this of course is just theory, and creating balance would mean multiple resources being consumed to create a product). In tern, carrying superconductors to a high tech to make machines to carry to an agricultural station to boost food production, which in turn, you take to a station that is in a state of famine.
To compensate from market depletion, NPC's will also generate a flow chain on their own while in the system, a refinery next to an extraction will more than often times generate npc's selling metals to that station, and deviate from dumping into a demand source thats in high supply until consumed, in which NPC's will also depart the station with that product commodity for exportation.
All this increases a healthy game style for traders as it's mindlessly boring at the moment. A fluid system makes things easy and simple, while dynamically keeping people from 2 station routes and keeping things fresh, supply and demand is also dynamic as are prices, ensuring people have to pay attention every now and again.
This also is great for miners, as they are directly exporting to a system, if they can export so a system that's high in demand and consumes those resources the most (say an industrial / high tech consumes gold to produce multiple products, then that resource would drain their fastest, and also be in highest demand) then the miner would not only go straight for whatever is simply the highest paying wherever, but change based on nearby market demand, so miners arent just looking for 1 type of ring. ice rings can be mined for water to use in atmospheric processors and given to famine systems too, though some agricultural systems also produce water, but some consume, which keeps things fresh.
Another scenario would prison colonies consume non lethal weapons and inner mobs would require battle weapons to put the system in a war, meaning you control the stations influence directly! not just selling anything at a loss, there would be more effective methods.
For server load, have the transaction server do a check for player visited systems in the last hour, if yes, check market supply and demand, and depending on what economy, have it convert / consume materials and produce what it's supposed to produce, and adjust price accordingly. If an hour is too much, try a day. ensuring the check is only for buffered stations (player has touched the system) then that lessens the server load of checking each station by a lot.
How do we make a market dynamic and fluid?
I know the term "crafting" gets thrown around a lot here, but most of these things are already in the game. Unlike actual crafting, they arent crafted, they are just generated. My proposal is we take these commodities and have them crafted by the station to make a product that is then exported to another station for more crafting or consumption, crafting and consumption both have the same output.
Crafting and consumption will be "destroy" the host product to produce something else. Whether an industrial station is crafting palladium into superconductors or an agricultural station is consuming atmospheric processors to boost fish productions. This gives a real sense of what we already have, selling a commodity high in supply to something high in demand, it is different because said commodity is actually being destroyed and created, not just... there.. This also means that after an amount of time, the more material you feed into a station the less it will want it over a production time to create items, and the more the station makes, the less they will sell them for after a while.
This also eliminates the boring 2 station route and mindless trading because you actually have to be mindful of resources you are distributing to a station, too much platinum and the demand sinks, but the superconductors will be in plentiful amounts (this of course is just theory, and creating balance would mean multiple resources being consumed to create a product). In tern, carrying superconductors to a high tech to make machines to carry to an agricultural station to boost food production, which in turn, you take to a station that is in a state of famine.
To compensate from market depletion, NPC's will also generate a flow chain on their own while in the system, a refinery next to an extraction will more than often times generate npc's selling metals to that station, and deviate from dumping into a demand source thats in high supply until consumed, in which NPC's will also depart the station with that product commodity for exportation.
All this increases a healthy game style for traders as it's mindlessly boring at the moment. A fluid system makes things easy and simple, while dynamically keeping people from 2 station routes and keeping things fresh, supply and demand is also dynamic as are prices, ensuring people have to pay attention every now and again.
This also is great for miners, as they are directly exporting to a system, if they can export so a system that's high in demand and consumes those resources the most (say an industrial / high tech consumes gold to produce multiple products, then that resource would drain their fastest, and also be in highest demand) then the miner would not only go straight for whatever is simply the highest paying wherever, but change based on nearby market demand, so miners arent just looking for 1 type of ring. ice rings can be mined for water to use in atmospheric processors and given to famine systems too, though some agricultural systems also produce water, but some consume, which keeps things fresh.
Another scenario would prison colonies consume non lethal weapons and inner mobs would require battle weapons to put the system in a war, meaning you control the stations influence directly! not just selling anything at a loss, there would be more effective methods.
For server load, have the transaction server do a check for player visited systems in the last hour, if yes, check market supply and demand, and depending on what economy, have it convert / consume materials and produce what it's supposed to produce, and adjust price accordingly. If an hour is too much, try a day. ensuring the check is only for buffered stations (player has touched the system) then that lessens the server load of checking each station by a lot.
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