[Suggestion] Do not put market caps on wears

[det2048]

Currently there are market caps on wares (max and min). Since this is a sandbox it will be true to the nature of a sandbox if we have an option to disable these mins and maxes and allow true capitalism to reign. It will make the game so much more interesting to decide what stations to create based off of market price, and you may discover its too competitive to add another energy station or certain wares that are hard to find are now very profitable. This allows prices to get to their true value based on the state the galaxy is in.

[Raptor34]

Considering factions don't track their money, what is this but a win more mechanism?
It's also not going to be fun for new players when prices go out of control either, this is a game after all.

[det2048]

Considering factions don't track their money, what is this but a win more mechanism?
It's also not going to be fun for new players when prices go out of control either, this is a game after all.

This is a win for people who like a true sandbox and an interesting game. If you think this is just a win for mechanics then I'm afraid you do not understand. I would even argue a noob will be confused why you cannot set prices lower, I remember when I first played I had an energy station that was wasting energy production because I could not sell enough product and my container was full. Building more containers would not solve the problem I needed to sell. But I was really confused I could not reduce the price from the min cap. BTW this can totally be an option.

[MKL81]

Not sure how this should work and I imagine this would have far greater implications to other mechanisms in the game. Currently the ware price is a function of current stock vs min/max stock. Station prices do not 100% reflect overall economy situation (no functional mechanics to set price based on goods availability but if ware is in high demand then stations nearby will have low or no stock - economy induced. Now - should we allow this only the player to have uncapped good prices or also AI? If all factions can do it as well - imagine having an early story mission and all of the sudden you have to pay 5 million for a bunch of adv electronics to ship somewhere. I see this as potential unnecessary grind. What about faction missions - can it happen that the reward is actually lower that the cost to deliver goods required? This looks to me as something that should be carefully considered as potentially it can break the game for some players.

[det2048]

should we allow this only the player to have uncapped good prices or also AI? If all factions can do it as well

All of course, it would be unfair advantage in favor of the player.

- imagine having an early story mission and all of the sudden you have to pay 5 million for a bunch of adv electronics to ship somewhere. I see this as potential unnecessary grind.

I never seen advance electronics be hard to come by early in the game, however if this did happen I would see it as an opportunity to save up and build electronics station and make serious cash.

What about faction missions - can it happen that the reward is actually lower that the cost to deliver goods required? This looks to me as something that should be carefully considered as potentially it can break the game for some players.

This would not break anything as there is special trade for missions only. However they could just simply use the current market price instead of hardcoding a price.

This looks to me as something that should be carefully considered as potentially it can break the game for some players.

I do not think it is that difficult nor game breaking in any way. But I appreciate you giving it a good think!

[Rei Ayanami]

While I understand the desire for an uncapped market, an uncapped market only works if there is a limited amount of money AND resources, which isn't the case in the game.

Lets say there is a shortage of Claytronics, there is only 1 container Claytronics left in the universe: for how much would that container of Claytronics be sold?
Considering that AI factions have unlimited amount of money, they could bid into the billions and trillions for single items, unlimited amounts of times, which would cause unlimited inflation.

An actually uncapped market would only work gameplay-wise if there was limited amount of credits or limited amount of resources, so there would be some kind of ware value that can be negotiated.
However, I think if AI factions had only a limited amount of credits and if resources were also limited, then the game would easily and often grind to a boring halt, which is not something that is desirable for most players.

[taztaz502]

Need to just adjust the demand and consumption of resources tenfold.

I don't like that i can build 1 food and med facility and completely saturate the market for the entire galaxy.

Can't even do the food shortage quests because the urgent need for food is non-existent.

I want the choice when i start a new game do i go for ship building or do i build a food or medical distribution company, or maybe a weapon component manufacturer (Since they removed weapons as products) etc. You can't do that because past the first 5 hours there is no demand left in the universe.

[det2048]

While I understand the desire for an uncapped market, an uncapped market only works if there is a limited amount of money AND resources, which isn't the case in the game.

Everything is limited, there is a finite number of any material in the game at any point. You can add them up in the xml saved game.

Lets say there is a shortage of Claytronics, there is only 1 container Claytronics left in the universe: for how much would that container of Claytronics be sold?
Considering that AI factions have unlimited amount of money, they could bid into the billions and trillions for single items, unlimited amounts of times, which would cause unlimited inflation.

If that was the case you would build claytronics production and making a killing, then prices would go down. Free market is self correcting because of greed to make money.

[Ketraar]

Everything is limited, there is a finite number of any material in the game at any point. You can add them up in the xml saved game.

This is not really accurate, what the other poster meant was that in real life things are actually finite. Whereas ingame they are not, regions replenish over time making gases and minerals infinite. But the bigger point that was raised is the infinite amount of money factions have, which would not really hamper buying just by making things have bigger numbers. There are sure interesting approaches on how cost ranges or even "value" could be determined, none are simple and all require thinking quite a bit about it as most, if not all, of the game relies on the economy working. Even if most people take it for granted.

MFG

Ketraar

[m4nt4]

How would you ever be able to build a claytronics factory?
Buy a single claytronic for 10 million, go ferry around some peaople for a year, buy the next claytronic?

[det2048]

Everything is limited, there is a finite number of any material in the game at any point. You can add them up in the xml saved game.

This is not really accurate, what the other poster meant was that in real life things are actually finite. Whereas ingame they are not, regions replenish over time making gases and minerals infinite.

Raw wares are still finite since they need to be gathered. We should not focus on wares not yet obtained. The raw materials of the real universe are infinite as well, however we are limited on our tools to gather them as well as time and distance constraints. X universe is not much diferent, but the time and distance is significantly lower since the resources regenerate close by. However I would agree raw materials will get pretty cheap. But please read onto my other reply.

But the bigger point that was raised is the infinite amount of money factions have, which would not really hamper buying just by making things have bigger numbers. There are sure interesting approaches on how cost ranges or even "value" could be determined, none are simple and all require thinking quite a bit about it as most, if not all, of the game relies on the economy working. Even if most people take it for granted.

Then problem is raw materials could get really cheap, you are suggesting there should be a minimum. In the real world peoples time is worth something, since we do not consider salaries in x4 you could have a minimum amount of profit per trip. Zero profit makes no sense and no trader should do it. Let's say 1. So most extreme case, raw material was free so it had a value of 0, selling will be 1. So we set a ware buy minimum at 1. Again this will not break the game, things may get a lot cheaper.

But what if we want balance to raise prices again?
Sure.. you can counter balanced in many ways, for example by making the enemies more aggressive. Destroying the miners. Or gas and asteroids could replenish much slower. Game needs a little tweaking to make raw materials harder to get if we want raw goods to cost more. But I do not think super cheap raw materials will not break the game. If people want a harder game, get more Xenon other factions to be more aggressive.

So recap here are a list of game tweaks that can bring us into a more balanced approach to free markets. Any one of these could keep raw materials from getting too cheap.
1. More aggressive factions
2. Longer delay on resource respawns forcing miners to go further or waiting, forcing players to make trade hubs etc.
3. Slower mining times, or raw resources could take up more space forcing more trips with miners

[det2048]

How would you ever be able to build a claytronics factory?
Buy a single claytronic for 10 million, go ferry around some peaople for a year, buy the next claytronic?

I seriously doubt this will ever happen, but in extreme cases you could pickup claytronics through hacking storage and picking up the goods.