jpcsupplies
commented
4 years ago Just a footnote here, keen space credit basically does exactly this now anyway - and as a bonus if server jumping ever gets used, and the destination isnt running frontier economy they can still use their currently in the keen space credit economy
Other players have requested this, and in the context of capture / intercept missions it makes sense since it allows NPC ships to reward money for piracy.
In a nutshell:
We create a physical item - "credit note" this item has a fixed value of 1 credit per note, and has little or no physical weight, but can be stored in inventories. Players can at any time convert any amount of their "bank balance" to credit notes or back again - so long as they can afford to cover the value of the credit notes, or have enough in their inventory to convert the desired qty back. Material load out of the item should be worth less than 1 credit, or credit notes could be a worthless raw material itself. It should not be available to make credit notes in an assembler or refinery.
Purpose:
This will greatly simplify the process of carrying money between servers when using the "galaxies" project - or when using 3rd party mods that allow ships to travel between servers. This would facilitate trade between servers without the need for the Universal bank balance feature to work on the galaxies client or without needing the galaxies client at all.
Implementation:
This will either require a special check in the /buy/sell code so that this item can always be traded - or at the very least it can always be traded in any trade zone regardless of inventory so long as the player can afford it. Stock would not be tracked for this item and it would not show in the trade zone pricelist. All trade zones would buy or sell this item, so long as the player had enough carried to cover the sell quantity, or had enough money to cover buy quantity. The money from players buying this item would always go to the NPC bank balance so that lost credit notes do not destroy all the money in the universe. The value of this item would never change or be effected by reactive pricing.
or
We add a command like /issue XX and /revoke xx which allows a player to issue or revoke credit notes when needed (or looted) instead of using the buy/sell commands. When issued the players balance for the purchase goes to the NPC, when revoked the value does /not/ get paid by the npc, we simply destroy the credit note and add that quantity to the players bank balance. This allows credits transferring between servers to be value added to the new server (by being added to the players bank balance there) and holding its own value, but at the same time gives the NPC positive cashflow. In effect it will work not unlike the way the real world banking system creates money from thin air with credit..
Admin configurable options:
Firstly the ability to issue and revoke should probably be an option admins can turn on or off.
Secondly although the price of 1 credit note per credit is fixed, we should consider allowing the possibility of configuring what that exchange rate is - although this is not critical.
For example, in a standard asteroids map it could be 1:1 to reflect a balanced resource balance.
In a large world with many planets and lots of resources it could be 0.5:1 to reflect the inflation caused by an overstoked commodity market (so 1 credit note only pays half a credit when cashed in, (notes ratio) when issued it costs 2 credits for 1 credit note (credits ratio))
In a fairly empty world with limited resources, it could be 2:1 to increase its value to reflect scarcity - (so 1 credit note pays two credits when cashed in, and 2 credit buys one credit note. )