Add economy to MTR

[gund]

Suggestion Type

New blocks/items

Suggestion

This mod has been amazing in providing pure means of transportation but I've always missed a more organic integration with the rest of the world. What I mean by it is that it's "payment" system just feels completely useless right now by just removing the emeralds from everyone who is using transportation. And it does not "encourage" or "pay" to anyone who maintains and operates actual transportation system on the server and expands it. Also operators of the transportation network do not need to do much after it's been built to operate it, for example it's completely "free" to operate hundreds of trains and elevators once built.

I think there is a huge opportunity to fill the gap and make this mod even more exciting by expanding it's economic impact, which will give it much deeper integration in the servers that are not just "demo" servers but where people actually play to survive, explore and progress.

I would suggest adding to the core of this mod 2 things:

1. Ability for builders of the transportation systems to "get paid", so when someone is using their network the emeralds that are charged are not just disappearing into the void but actually get transferred to the owner/operator of this network. This could be done by introducing a new block - "payment bank" (the name is just for idea) and it's inventory would collect emeralds that are payed and which could be accessed by placing somewhere in the world by the network operator player. Obviously there may be many different networks operated by many different players so some sort of linking between the block and sidings is required.
2. Introduce "energy cost" of running trains/elevators/planes etc. which is just an abstract concept that must be later adapted to the preferred electricity in the modpack (for example Mekanism RF or IndustrialCraft AE). Essentially adapter block must be an interface that gives the ability to consume any type of electricity by providing some sort of a coefficient multiplier to make it reasonable for a particular mod. And then the trains/elevators in order to move would require such "energy provider" blocks to be attached, for example, to the sidings and will try to consume energy in order to move. The bigger/longer the train - more energy it will require to move.

This would require operators of the transport network to source electricity to meet the demand of their system and will create a nice real world like experience and economy by incentivizing network optimizations and expansions in order to gain more capital and make profits.

What do you think about this idea? Is it possible to do it outside of the core of this mod or does it need to be part of the core?

Assets

No response

Implementation Details and References

No response

[Ultimate-USA-YT]

Economies are Out of the mod's Scope

[ajh123]

Another suggestion I have is allow server operators to change the valid currency items that MTR uses.

For example, a server may have the Create: Numismatics mod which adds its own "coins" with different values.

Having the ability to change the currencey items will allow MTR to have better intergration with existing currencey mods.

Also, this means MTR does not have to implment a whole new economy, which Ultimate-USA-YT have said:

Economies are Out of the mod's Scope

This will allow server operators to develop a common economy in their own way rather, then being forced to use the one set by MTR.

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I also like the suggestion of making exsting MTR feature require payment or energy, however I belive this should be an offical addon mod, since MTR does not have a proper survival balance anyway (MTR is like a creative mode mod that haves crafting recipes so it can be used in survival).