Solution for balancing the credit economy after countless exploits

[Arkadi]

I think profits should be balanced around trading generally. Trading should be a viable option to make a living. High risk missions should pay more then an average trade run. Low risk data-courier missions should pay a bit less.

Also a traders profit should be possibly high enough that he can afford to lose a fraction of his profits to pirates without going into red numbers.

Pirates should be abel to make a living from looting about 10% of a traders cargo by selling this on the black-markets. With making a living I mean to be abel to pay for fuel, repairs and ammo and also save enough money to be abel to have enough savings to upgrade ships and pay for several rebuys a week.

Passanger missions can vary but should not exceed trading and exploration income by much - with some exceptions with very high-profile VIP or criminal passangers.

Illigal missions and war missions should pay more then average becouse high-risk should be rewarded with high profit.

and so on...

In my opinion trading should be the go-to option to quickly earn some credits. As it s now... it is not really the case.

 

[Sylveria]

I think profits should be balanced around trading generally. Trading should be a viable option to make a living. High risk missions should pay more then an average trade run. Low risk data-courier missions should pay a bit less.

Also a traders profit should be possibly high enough that he can afford to lose a fraction of his profits to pirates without going into red numbers.

Pirates should be abel to make a living from looting about 10% of a traders cargo by selling this on the black-markets. With making a living I mean to be abel to pay for fuel, repairs and ammo and also save enough money to be abel to have enough savings to upgrade ships and pay for several rebuys a week.

Passanger missions can vary but should not exceed trading and exploration income by much - with some exceptions with very high-profile VIP or criminal passangers.

Illigal missions and war missions should pay more then average becouse high-risk should be rewarded with high profit.

and so on...

In my opinion trading should be the go-to option to quickly earn some credits. As it s now... it is not really the case.

How do you make illegal trading more profitable than legal trading, though?

For example- Trader hauling cargo pays say 10,000 credits for cargo to be hauled. Pirate takes 10% of this, so 1,000 credits worth of cargo. How would selling this (even on the Black Market) profit the Pirate in any way? Why should the cargo all of a sudden be more valuable than 1,000 credits to begin with? If anything, it should be less because it's stolen goods, right? (more difficult to fence)

This is exactly why Piracy isn't profitable. It's not meant to be- and artificially making it more valuable isn't a viable solution, either. That's just the reality (even if the game world) of economics.

Goods don't inflate in value because they become stolen goods.

So the question becomes how do you make Piracy in itself more "meaningful" to those who choose to engage in it without artificially increasing the value of stolen goods?

 

[Arkadi]

Oh, a trader hauling high-priced goods (let's say Platinium that sells for about 14.000cr - just an exampel) in a Python with lets say 140t cargo space. The whole cargo is worth nearly 2 millions of credits. The profit for the tader though is far less becouse he has to buy and sell (lets say buy 12.000 sell 14.000 is 2.000 cr profit per ton = 280.000 cr profit for the whole haulage.

The pirate has no buying cost. He only sells - of course for less then on the legal market. But if the pirate could sell stolen goods for only a bit less then actually for much less it would already be a good gain. Selling stolen Platinium for 10.000 cr would be nice. Selling 14 tons (10%) would net him 140.000 cr - not too shabby. It's half of the traders profit.

The trader loses 168.000 cr though (buying price 12.000 x 14tons stolen) - that leaves him with a profit margin of 112.000 (The original 280.000 cr- 168.000 lost cargo).

This is viable and works out. But profits are a bit low on all sides. I would like to see increased trade profits - this would buff both, pirates and traders.

 

[Sylveria]

Oh, a trader hauling high-priced goods (let's say Platinium that sells for about 14.000cr - just an exampel) in a Python with lets say 140t cargo space. The whole cargo is worth nearly 2 millions of credits. The profit for the tader though is far less becouse he has to buy and sell (lets say buy 12.000 sell 14.000 is 2.000 cr profit per ton = 280.000 cr profit for the whole haulage.

The pirate has no buying cost. He only sells - of course for less then on the legal market. But if the pirate could sell stolen goods for only a bit less then actually for much less it would already be a good gain. Selling stolen Platinium for 10.000 cr would be nice. Selling 14 tons (10%) would net him 140.000 cr - not too shabby. It's half of the traders profit.

OK, I see what you're saying. So the selling value on the Black Market should be say 10% less than the original (legal) market value of the goods? I don't see why that would be a problem.

Being someone who has yet to delve in "Black Market" goods, how is this different currently? Do they sell at much less in value?

 

[Arkadi]

OK, I see what you're saying. So the selling value on the Black Market should be say 10% less than the original (legal) market value of the goods? I don't see why that would be a problem.

Being someone who has yet to delve in "Black Market" goods, how is this different currently? Do they sell at much less in value?

I think they sell quite a bit less. Not really sure about the numbers though. At work right now. However with current payouts of missions and passangers - trading and pirating (for less then Low Temperature Diamonds) can hardly compete. Although piracy gets a bit of a buff with the next update of Beyond. But enough? I doubt it.

 

[overdark999]

Just another thread.... I am a poor guy and I hate you rich guys


(Sigh)

 

[Sylveria]

I think they sell quite a bit less. Not really sure about the numbers though. At work right now.

Okay- does anyone else know what the current percentage of Black Market goods sell for?

I could totally get behind an increase of profits for Stolen Goods to 90% of their original market value. As to the "risk assessment", however- I'd have to argue that a trader who's invested the initial cost plus the risk of transporting goods being at the mercy of those who wish to relinquish them would be risking much more. The nature of "piracy" is to obtain goods you didn't have to pay for, after all. Pure profit, if you're successful.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

This is viable and works out. But profits are a bit low on all sides.

I did a bit more detailed mathematical modelling of this scenario a while back, and it gets very complicated very quickly. You can make situations where both professions are profitable, but they're not stable situations. I did find some stable possibilities in a basic simulation, but I don't believe they'd have remained stable when you took out in all the simplifications I'd made to make it practical to model at all.

Say in the situation you describe there are 8 traders and 2 pirates in a system. Each pirate interdicts one of the incoming traders, so pirate profit is 140,000 and trader profit is 112,000 25% of the time and 280,000 75% of the time (or 238,000 on average). The average trader profit is higher that the average pirate profit (and this is before we've added "things which shoot at pirates" to give them extra costs), so it's likely that one of the pirates will be a typical Elite player and go for the more profitable stuff. This then means there's 9 traders and 1 pirate ... pirate profit is still 140,000, but the trader profit is now 112,000 only 11% of the time, and 280,000 a whole 89% of the time. So if everyone changes profession occasionally to the more profitable ones, eventually you run out of pirates. (6 traders and 4 pirates as a starting condition also gives one of the 4 pirates an incentive to switch)

Alternatively, start with 5 traders and 5 pirates. The pirates make 140,000, the traders make 112,000. So a trader switches to piracy.
Now we have 4 traders and 6 pirates.
Option 1: 2 traders get robbed twice (and therefore make a loss), and 2 get robbed once (and therefore make less than a pirate does). We run out of traders pretty quickly.
Option 2: 4 traders get robbed by 4 pirates, the other 2 pirates getting nothing. So the average trader profit is 112,000 ... the average pirate profit is (140,000 * 67% + 0 * 33%) = 93,800. Now the piracy is less profitable so it might switch back to 5 and 5 ... but if it ever goes as far as 6 traders, it then goes to 10 traders.
(which of Option 1 and Option 2 is more realistic I don't know)

This is already pretty unstable and we haven't introduced anything like police, bounty hunters, different ship classes and sizes, armed traders, escorts, more than one system to trade in, or players who sleep sometimes...
(Mining, being the equivalent of trading but with a ~0 buy price ... or Exploration which has a ~0 buy price and is unpiratable ... they mess up the balance even more)

Okay- does anyone else know what the current percentage of Black Market goods sell for?

I could totally get behind an increase of profits for Stolen Goods to 90% of their original market value. As to the "risk assessment", however- I'd have to argue that a trader who's invested the initial cost plus the risk of transporting goods being at the mercy of those who wish to relinquish them would be risking much more. The nature of "piracy" is to obtain goods you didn't have to pay for, after all. Pure profit, if you're successful.

I think 90% is about what it is at the moment.

On the risk side ... the trader doesn't get bounty hunters and police after them, and the pirate (in theory...) does. Ideally, I think, the risk and profit to both should be the same in aggregate - though of course composed very differently.

 

[Sylveria]

I think 90% is about what it is at the moment.

On the risk side ... the trader doesn't get bounty hunters and police after them, and the pirate (in theory...) does. Ideally, I think, the risk and profit to both should be the same in aggregate - though of course composed very differently.

Thanks for the information regarding the percentage. As to the "risk" assessment... engaging in criminal activity indeed has its own risks, as does engaging in legal activity.

Those who visit an ATM walking along a street risk every day being robbed of their money, along with their lives. Those who wish to rob them risk their lives and freedom in return. I've yet to see an alternative assessment to such scenarios- in game or out. Risks abound on both sides- and to say just because someone is transporting goods from point A to point B they don't risk anything is foolish.

 

[PiLhEaD]

Nice point, which could be solved if every item you buy loses value with time, at the same proportion of inflation, so if you sell a one month ship /module whatever you get much more money than selling a one year ship/module....

Only if I can invest my cash into a hedge fund run by Warren Buffett. Otherwise, no.

 

[Arkadi]

Also the problem is, trading is one of the less profitable things to do - compared to some available mission types - and how you are pointing out, not free of risk too.

There will be new in game trading tools in the new update and there will be a buff to black markets and PvE pirating. I welcome this and I hope trading and piracy will get even more love in the future, becouse I think those professions have much more potential to live up to.

Dealing with illegal goods and using boom states and outbreaks can boost trading profits quite a bit. With the new trading tools that we will get in game I think it will become much easier to find such profitable routs - and using the option to see commander-routs on gal map filters might help pirates - if open piracy will not be disabled by crime & punishment heavy police forces and combat logging.

Conclusio: If trading profits raise maybe "exploits" will become less attractive, and players will be able to progress in the game by trading again.

 

[Idirian]

FD just have to rise credits rewards and costs by x10.

Imagine that an anaconda now costs 1.5 billion, but missions now reward 10 million instead of 1million, as bounties etc, every reward x10 and every cost x10. As also the rebuy cost X10

The ships before the "Big inflation" could be flagged as legacy, and selling them would return the previous payed prices.


It would balance out the game again, and people that exploited the game hard would not be much more op than people that didn't, almost like a fair economy reset.



I'm ignoring not logical arguments of not worrying about other peoples credit in a multiplayer game with pvp and some of the progression and the rebuys WITH CREDITS.

This is a work of genius! A really long way of saying "I'm poor, you're rich. I'm jealous. You should be poor like me."

 

[A D]

So, if you already own the ship, then doesn't affect you. If you don't own the ship, then does, but the cost relative to credit rewards is the same. Players will still be able exploit missions to get rich quick.

So the idea in the OP helps how exactly?

 

[Laste]

FD just have to rise credits rewards and costs by x10.

Imagine that an anaconda now costs 1.5 billion, but missions now reward 10 million instead of 1million, as bounties etc, every reward x10 and every cost x10. As also the rebuy cost X10

The ships before the "Big inflation" could be flagged as legacy, and selling them would return the previous payed prices.


It would balance out the game again, and people that exploited the game hard would not be much more op than people that didn't, almost like a fair economy reset.



I'm ignoring not logical arguments of not worrying about other peoples credit in a multiplayer game with pvp and some of the progression and the rebuys WITH CREDITS.

I've got a billion and three ships, an asp explorer, python, and a cobra mark 3. (i don't count side winders as they are throwaways). Not an exploiter, just played the game. Did cargo runs, black market runs,illegal cargo runs, sat in high risk sites and compromised beacons, Took on pirates and helped in community goals. Oh, and i explored in the asp and scanned for what seems a lifetime.I'm elite in trade but not anything else, but i'm slowly getting there.
Does the money i made that way, now considered not as valuable, if i now want to buy more ships and outfit them? Because it sounds like you want to puinish everyone because you don't like how some got their money.

The BIG INFLATION as you call it wouldn't punish the exploiters, as they will keep doing it, and keep bringing in those now inflated credits. It would just devalue the credits for everyone, And telling me the credits i earned are less cause you don't like someone else running a game exploit is petty.

 

[T4ct1csOG]

The returning player would still have all his assets so it wouldnt actually lose anything, and if he wants more assets he needs to get some credits to be able to afford them, isnt that the actual purpose of credits instead of making huge fortunes with exploits that last forever?

I'm trying not to flame here, but just no. If I devalue your money you have indeed lost something.

Money is actually an IOU (in the real world for gold) if I as the gold backer suddenly just come out and say your money is now worth less of the gold than you gave me, I have indeed stolen gold from you, and you have indeed lost that gold... subtle theft is still theft, as much as if I logged in to your bank account and changed all your digits to 0 you didn't physically lose anything but those digits represent real money which I really did just take from you and thus you DID lose something.

 

[[DOOK] Droogie]

Exploiting a function like reporting exploitable posts after being indeed exploited, is the very definition of the exploited word EXPLOIT, and can cause exploitable exploits to actually exploit exploits by exploitation.

It's a code. I know it's in there somewhere....


Somebody get me Jeff Goldblum.

 

[Oopsie Daisy]

No need. How much money someone has is of no effect on you. OP is just jealous of other's credit balance and that is all this is about.

 

[Jorge Palu]

Thats the issue with being mega rich though. There are no more risks and thus the game becomes less fun.

Your game might be less fun. With 1.3 billion to spend after Medb my game has just got a whole lot better.