[Discussion] Economy (with connected story element)

[koosemose]

With a game like this the ability to sell things can be very important (especially if we later implement some of the talked about ideas of having some resources possibly being rarer on different playthroughs). However, if you desperately need some resource, having to wait for a trade ship can be devastating, but being able to always sell things straight up would be too easy.

While thinking about this, it occurred to me that in the suggested storyline, we have Quill Corp as an exploitative corporation, and we could make use of that in designing the economy. If in the early game there is an easily available (maybe even part of the starter base) "Trade Station" that is solely for selling to Quill Corp, and them being exploitative they offer lower prices for your resources and things cost more, with the implication that in their "basic utility station" they have a way to easily transport the goods (so a landing pad isn't needed for it), and Mid to Late game you would want to build the more involved Landing Pad and anything else involved with that system (maybe a communications console as well), that would allow you to deal with other people (other corporations and/or free traders) who would generally offer you better prices, but only be available some of the time (similar to RimWorld's traders that come by every so often).

I'm not sure if others will find it an interesting mechanic, but we could further reinforce the exploitative corporation idea by having trading with Quill Corp use a separate currency (A scrip like currency), the primary effect being that even late game it may be desirable to still do some amount of trade with Quill Corp so you have an emergency fund in case you need something suddenly and can't wait for a trader.

We could even go so far as having "faction standing" with different corporations and traders (though it might be better and simpler to have standing with "Free Traders" rather than individual traders.) Which could affect their prices and how often they show up, and possibly even delivery speed (maybe with a high enough faction standing you can actual call for a trader to come, so you don't have to wait as long, but still taking some time to arrive).

[Dan54]

I think the "faction standing" could be made so you gain standing by trading and completing faction missions, but gaining standing with one faction makes you lose standing with another. Free trader standing could give you more frequent traders. QuillCorp standing gets you better prices, but prices are always significantly lower than free traders.

A similar system could be used for Space Pirates vs Space Police.

[sboigelot]

Great idea :)

I'm also having the question about what is the currency in the game. I will need this answer to finish implementing the "free trader" trade.

In rimworld they use an Inventory item, Silver I think. But should we go that way? It always seemed strange to me. If we are in a star-trek like future, I assume we should have electronic currency.

[koosemose]

Well if we have an exploitative Corporation, we don't quite have star trek like future. I know a lot of sci-fi settings use a fairly generic "Credit" typically with the governmental form or something else having to do with the government appended to it.

I'm personally fond of complex monetary systems, but am trying to reign myself in for suggestions, but I think at least two forms of currency is good and flavorful (Quill-bucks, and the more standard and widely accepted "credit"), and maybe the occasional "unlawful trader" (pirate, smuggler, rebels, etc...) that only deals on barter (essentially doesn't use your store of credits, and an unspent credits from the trade are lost). I like the idea of having different effects based on who and what kind of groups you deal with.

As a tabletop RPG DM, I'm of the opinion that every little element of a game should somehow tell part of the story of the setting, so Rimworld's silver trade implies either that you're only dealing with traders far outside of the scope of government or that the government has mostly fallen apart (obviously the first would be the more likely one due to the name), barter implies something roughly similar. Whereas credits (and an electronic currency in general) implies a unified government (or at least a unified coalition). With the name potentially adding extra information. Stellaris' energy credits is a bit of an exception, it comes off more as a slightly out of game term to designate what they are actually trading, and that being the only thing that is a shared need of all space-faring civilizations, energy.

[sboigelot]

Ok, for now, as a simple first version I'll just implement a N currency system where each trader use a specific currency.

I'll add the Quill-bucks (QB) and a more generic Inter-Galactic-Credit (IGC), but it will be easy to add more in a xml file from the streaming asset. Of course the names are up for discussion, but it doesn't really matter much for now.

Trading energy is easily done as energy can be stored in battery and exchange for other objects.

[sboigelot]

In #1075 @buggy213 asked:

Do you think it would be a good idea to have some way to convert between currencies?

[koosemose]

It partially depends on which exact currencies are specifically implemented. If it's just QuillBucks and Real Money, then I would say no, as that's part of both the story idea of QB, and the game mechanics interest of QB. Where QB is supposed to be easier to get and spend (as near instant as the design of the rest of the system allows), it is inefficient, it takes more things sold to equal the same things bought, compared to Real Money. The choice point is do you want to have that emergency money that can possibly bail you out in a pinch, but have to work twice as hard, or work normal and hope you don't need anything for an immediate emergency, or do you do something in between, trying to keep enough QB as an emergency fund, but getting as much profits as you can dealing with RM.

Possibly some traders might be willing to buy QB to essentially convert them for you, but it should either be rare (and possibly illegal) or at a rate that isn't advantageous, more of a "Uhoh I'm a few RM short, How about 50 QB to cover the difference" sort of thing. You shouldn't be able to exchange RM for QB, as that sabotages the main gameplay point of it, if you can just convert RM to it whenever you want, and not have to plan ahead.

[powli]

In a sense QB could be used as some kind of xp/tech system. Story being Quillcorp is a big franchise business with the player being some kind of franchise partner. Better machinery has to be unlocked via QB by buying licenses for using the designs of Quillcorp. Or you could send your employees to a training program at Quillcorp for QB, etc.

[koosemose]

That would be an interesting system as well... as long as you remember that QuillCorp isn't nice, QB is basically scrip, they don't want to make you better or help you profit... they just want to drain every last cent from you, and don't care if you suck vacuum, as long as you make them money while doing it. Or at least that's the current idea of QuillCorp, and a fair number of people are quite fond of it as an exploitative Corporation.

[Tranberry]

On the topic of improving standings with a faction, there was the idea of completing missions. What kind of missions are we talking about, is it harvest x amount of ore?

[koosemose]

From a standpoint of what we can do now, there's Build X furniture via quests... I kind of feel like missions, that feel more an ingame thing than our current quests system is, should be get to X location and do Y thing, be that just explore it for a bit or harvest some super rare ore.

On that note, I'd love to have the idea of some way of generating random ore... not random placement of ore, but a random ore that doesn't otherwise exist in the game. Get kind of a gold rush thing going for a newly discovered mineral... can't do anything with it but sell it (maybe refine?), but kind of a unique thing to go after.

[sboigelot]

[ outOfTopic ] Just as a side note, the quest system allow anything, not only "Build X furniture". The completition condition is a lua method defined in the quest. The only reason we only have "Build X stuff" is because I just created that lua method for now. It's fully extendable [/ outOfTopic ]