I would like to Discuss the Economy and how we the player have Zero effect on it!

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

If your ultimate goal is to eradicate all life in the game, you should be able to to this.

I disagree with this statement where the vanilla game is concerned. X games may be sandbox titles but they are primarily about building and using things not total annihilation. I agree though that it would be desirable to be able to mod this in.

[Earth Ultimatum IV.]

100% agree, X series was never about massive destruction. It has always been a game where you started as a freelancer, and then progressed towards building of your first station, trading vessels, and then expanding all of this.

[Slashman]

I've noticed that as well.

Perhaps then you should either comment on my actual topic of discussion or ignore it. See how easy that is? Perhaps that's a bit too difficult for you to grasp. As you get older I'm sure it'll come easier.

[CBJ]

And yet again it starts getting personal. If someone says something that you believe needs moderating, contact a moderator; do not respond in kind.

Now back on topic before yet another discussion ends up being derailed and locked.

[Swallen]

I thought in previous games the AI pulled ships out of their derrieres as well, didn't they?

I would only have a problem with this if they didn't need to have enough money in their account to create these ships, even if the construction time were zero.

Regarding OP. Have you tried to keep killing off ships? Perhaps they keep respawning until the organization runs out of money. That would sound reasonable to me.

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

@Swallen: NPC Faction Ship spawning principles essentially has not changed since the X-Trilogy. The factions are not limited by funds like the player is and never have been in any X game AFAIK outside of mods.

That does not mean the game is broken, nor is it necessarily something that needs to be addressed outside of mods. *IF* it were to be addressed the scope of the required changes would almost certainly exceed that of a patch update if you want it done properly. Mod developers can cut corners while it would be inappropriate for Egosoft to do so (proper QA testing for such changes would need to be extensive IMPO).

[ZaphodBeeblebrox]

I forget what version. 500 hours in entire economy stuck.

Then I discovered station hacking.

Woo hoo. Now hacking a few stations got the whole thing moving again.

So zero effect. No No no.

Massive effect.

Nuff said

[Slashman]

I forget what version. 500 hours in entire economy stuck.

Then I discovered station hacking.

Woo hoo. Now hacking a few stations got the whole thing moving again.

So zero effect. No No no.

Massive effect.

Nuff said

Granted that may work, but is it the intended way for the player to effect things?

Egosoft put a huge effort into making this 'living universe'. It seems like a glaring omission that factions wouldn't produce their own ships rather than spawning them. Maybe they still have work to do in this area.

[Swallen]

A lot of stuff was planned from the beginning. They just had to release before they continued working on things.

Take the swappable cockpits, for example. There was a mod shortly after release that exploited that mechanic in order to clear up screen space, and at that time the game did not use that feature at all.

So either Egosoft will get to it in due time or a mod will.

[Sandalpocalypse]

Granted that may work, but is it the intended way for the player to effect things?

Egosoft put a huge effort into making this 'living universe'. It seems like a glaring omission that factions wouldn't produce their own ships rather than spawning them. Maybe they still have work to do in this area.

set spawning clearly wasn't the intended design, so hopefully they will make progress on this front.

I worry that the economy design is working against them here, the ship production economy is pretty fragile and the loss of a single station at many points in the chain could seize up ship production entirely. Assuming the economy doesnt get a grand redesign, ship production would probably need a hack where ships can still be produced for max price in the event of a resource shortage. And another hack where ships get produced locally if the SY is destroyed.

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

set spawning clearly wasn't the intended design

I do not see where this assumption comes from, AFAIK there has been no official word from Egosoft on what the "intended design" was on this score.

Set spawning is a perfectly valid approach to replenishing lost ships in an NPC faction fleet. The main issue with such spawning is ensuring an intended game balance on that score. If the focus is the economy, then the spawning logic should reflect attempts to maintain a working economy.

We know that the AI can lose LOTS of ships due to roaming Ks/Is in Albion sectors and making the NPC factions require monetary resources to build/repair/reequip would most likely result in the economy coming to an unfeasibly recoverable standstill at some point because every built NPC ship would result in money being removed from the economy and the only "unrestricted" source of money would be from the player (which is not a good situation IMO).

The player has an infinite source of cash in the form of missions and inventory salvage while the AI would not have an unrestricted source of funds (resource collection/generation does not count) if some people have their way (or so it would appear). If you make mission rewards dependent on the economy then eventually the game would not be worth playing. Limit salvage opportunities and similar problems would occur.

In short, rather than introducing defacto cash resource limits for the NPC factions their spawning rates should probably just be rebalanced if deemed necessary.

[Sparky Sparkycorp]

making the NPC factions require monetary resources to build/repair/reequip would most likely result in the economy coming to an unfeasibly recoverable standstill at some point because every built NPC ship would result in money being removed from the economy and the only "unrestricted" source of money would be from the player.

I do not see where this assumption comes from, NPCs in Albion and OL have planetary populations that could be generating credits for factions if it really mattered. DV's economy is intentionally broken already and the other systems are not reliant on it so not a big deal how the NPCs [d]evolve there.

[Slashman]

I do not see where this assumption comes from, NPCs in Albion and OL have planetary populations that could be generating credits for factions if it really mattered. DV's economy is intentionally broken already and the other systems are not reliant on it so not a big deal how the NPCs [d]evolve there.

Interestingly, this is what Limit Theory is doing. Making the planetary colonies the source for generating things 'out of thin air' so to speak. They generate AI entities, low level goods, cash, and possibly small ships.

[Sparky Sparkycorp]

That is interesting, I'm looking forward to trying Limit Theory in the end.

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

@sparky: It is not an assumption... At least some people are asking to avoid NPC corporations producing ships/resources out of thin air thus it precludes the concept of money/resources coming from anywhere but the economy. If we allow an imaginary external source of income/resources that is not dependent on the economy then they are still going to be effectively pulling ships/resources out of thin air (at least from the players perspective).

It could be argued that the existing implementation is modelling exactly what you are talking about - an external (possibly planetary based) source of ships/resources for the spawned entities.

[SteveMill]

My feeling is that it's completely unrealistic to expect a working economy. what is not unrealistic is to expect a reasonably convincing working illusion that maintains that illusion through the interactions the player has with it.

Under no circumstances should it act like a jammed sewer until the player comes along and pokes it with a big stick.

[Sparky Sparkycorp]

@sparky: It is not an assumption... At least some people are asking to avoid NPC corporations producing ships/resources out of thin air thus it precludes the concept of money/resources coming from anywhere but the economy. If we allow an imaginary external source of income/resources that is not dependent on the economy then they are still going to be effectively pulling ships/resources out of thin air (at least from the players perspective).

It could be argued that the existing implementation is modelling exactly what you are talking about - an external (possibly planetary based) source of ships/resources for the spawned entities.

Of course it was an assumption. You stated that "the only "unrestricted" source of money would be from the player" but that is only one possible outcome of an implementation of wallets and build replacements from money and resources.

There is a gulf of possibilities between perma-spawning ware-filled ships (now) and having everything earned and made in space. Such as for example, money or resources being spawned to a faction at a particular rate.

Similarly, your underlying premise that the player would have "an infinite source of cash in the form of missions and inventory salvage" are also assumptions since the former is derived from factions (who are being discussed as having limited funds) and the latter requires traders to be left with no apparent limit to the funds.

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

@sparky: The player's access to effectively infinite sources of cash is a fact of the current game, no ifs/buts/maybes about it.

Some (very vocal) people want to be able to wipe out other factions either militarily or economically which is what has ultimately lead to the debate of how the NPCs should source replacement vessels (and perhaps some resources). If you want to wipe out a faction then you need to be able to permanently destroy their capability to build/rebuild ships/stations which ultimately means that they can not have an unlimited and untouchable source of resources (i.e. credits or ships) from outside the economy.

It is not true that the player has zero effect on the economy, but it is true that the player can not easily side-line other factions and replace them as the main supplier of given wares in a given sector. Some seem to think that changing the ship spawning logic is the key to making this easier, but I wholeheartedly and without reservation disagree with this premise (for numerous reasons).

X-Rebirth has an economy that is driven by supply and demand but the economy is effectively split into 3 main economic areas with minimal NPC faction trading between them IME. The status of the economic segregation is understandable from a Lore perspective but that does not help the fact that if there was more NPC faction inter-system trading there would probably be a few less issues with the economies overall.

In a plot game, the PMC hostility to certain factions (and general plot flow) makes the trans-Jump Gate trading awkward but in a free play game things should be less problematic.

IMO the current state of ship spawning is (in general) fine and I would argue that if you want to engage in system/sector/zone domination exercises that it is the purview of mods and not the vanilla game... c/f the X-Trilogy Vanilla v. Modded games.

The minimal trans-Jump Gate NPC trading actually means the player can exploit this limitation to make profits for themselves once they have a sufficient network of trade agents. Most of my in-game trading profits come from trans jump gate trading opportunities (mostly between AL and OL).

[Sparky Sparkycorp]

@sparky: The player's access to effectively infinite sources of cash is a fact of the current game, no ifs/buts/maybes about it.

This has the appearance of a rebuttal but since it simply states a fact about the present that doesn't address the point I made about the rigidity of your earlier statements, I will presume for now that you accept that your assumptions were incorrect.

If you want to wipe out a faction then you need to be able to permanently destroy their capability to build/rebuild ships/stations which ultimately means that they can not have an unlimited and untouchable source of resources (i.e. credits or ships) from outside the economy.

It's incorrect to suggest that unlimited credits could be enough since we can can suppress or camp shipyards now and potentially kil them in the potential future under discussion.

[pref]

Some (very vocal) people want to be able to wipe out other factions either militarily or economically which is what has ultimately lead to the debate of how the NPCs should source replacement vessels (and perhaps some resources). If you want to wipe out a faction then you need to be able to permanently destroy their capability to build/rebuild ships/stations which ultimately means that they can not have an unlimited and untouchable source of resources (i.e. credits or ships) from outside the economy.

If they stop regenerating once their last station is destroyed it works fine. Don't see why that would be impossible.

Anyway, this econonomy currently needs some 'divine' help, or auto regenration, as it's too small. Losing a single station or several trade ships can have too big an impact. The real solution is to increase the scale so that loosing a couple of stations has no real effect on the global picture. Still then some amount of help would probably needed to keep the factions going even in unexpected scenarios.

As long as the game cannot afford to loose a few stations there will be massive amount of cheats needed.