What are some interesting trends you've seen or expect from the in game economy?

[Durtle02]

For those playing, do many ores or materials have flat rates or does it change with concurrent player numbers? Do you think theyre will be luxury brands or ships? Are there any other trends or unique features of the economy? Do companies such as transporters have reputations based on how safe their ships are? Are there insurance policies for lost goods or rented ships?
For those who aren't, is there anything you expect or want of the market or anything you plan to do with it?

 

[XenoCow]

I hope that it is this way, but I'd like to see ores that are sold to stations more often decrease in price as the demand decreases and vice versa. This way, players don't have to hunt for the few rare materials all the time as the prices fluctuate.

 

[Dezlightyear]

The best one my Company and I can think of right now. Us being "Car guys" in real life, Is the sub-Ship culture that will evolve in the game. Tweaking ships so they are faster and what not. Like what gearhead doesn't want to Run "the Kessel Run in twelve parsecs" (Rounding down of course...)

 

[Meetbolio]

I'm in CA! Yes, the economy fluctuates depending on supply and demand. We've already killed the economy by oversupplying most stations, there's not a single ore that is sold above 100 Pips/kV. Mining is pretty much worthless now, at least compared to what it was in the beginning....

 

[XenoCow]

Does buying ships not subtract materials from stations?

 

[Meetbolio]

Does buying ships not subtract materials from stations?

Yeah, but there's only so many Ithaca IV's you can buy before getting bored.

 

[Quinc]

Meetbolio's words bring up a worry I have. The game is very dependent on having a balance between people earning money and spending money, between gathering resources and using those resources. If people have too little they feel like they can't accomplish anything past the basics, if they have too much they run out of things to do. Of course Closed Alpha is missing a lot of features, presumably once you have the ship you want you would start working on building the station you want, and then more ships to defend that station or take someone else's. With the focus on PvP most would assume that there would be a balance between the rate at which ships are built and destroyed, indeed people would build for the sake of replacing losses, but it doesn't seem like that has arisen in closed alpha.

 

[Durtle02]

but it doesn't seem like that has arisen in closed alpha

Yeah, I think the eco may not be circulating properly because there's not enough people. There's a lot of people waiting to play and that will be playing at launch. Once the game is in full swing people who stop playing or dont trade much will remove money from the economy and the sheer cost of warfare will balance it out as well. Its most likely just the scale isn't large enough right now.

 

[Venombrew]

there is hardly anyone in the game for Alpha to test a real market and economy. come on guys this is 101 stuff, you cant judge market based on little over 100 players when the game is designed for thousands of players at a time. You guys have no real risk of theft and loss yet, not enough players to count in the risk vs gain and loss. And those that are, are also trumped by the same low numbers. Thieves are more active when there are many many players to choose from, market places only function well when there are many many players to work from. Look at world of warcraft, beofre the xrealm and merger of auction houses, lower pop servers had a shitty shitty market place for players. You went to a high pop server, you could find not only what you needed but at a better price and in more bulk.

Until there is an actual population, the only real thing yuo guys are going to be testing that can show any real data with low numbers is the basic functions of the game. Error reports, structure building, ship flying and mechanics, weapon mechanics, mining data(but at a minimum, lack of bodies to judge more data from), GUI errors and structure such as Invetory, Friend List, Company tabs and so on.

Once they have a population, than you can run real tests towards market places, economy value in goods, risk vs gain and loss.

EDIT: Also without a enough players to base info off of, think about this, if we got 5k players, 35% of that 5k decided to be thieves and pirates, yuo do know that is a drastic change on market value.

 

[Mr.Chicken]

For the economy with Early Access, I hope prices on pretty much all goods will be dictated by a free player-driven market like in many MMORPGS like Runescape. So if many many people mine ores, the huge supply will drive the price down, so these people should move to making money from other ways (although there are not many other ways lmao), however, if there is very high demand for these ores in like shipbuilding, then the price of ores will go up. Additionally, I would love it if the community can somehow make their own businesses that sell certain services, like transporting players/bodyguarding players/mercenaries etc.

I feel like players who attack neutral ones should be marked as "pirates", at least temporarily and all the plunder they get from attacking neutral players can only be sold on a different market with lower prices like a black market. This might incentivize players to not become pirates which should have a good effect on the economy.

 

[TheMarksman]

For the economy with Early Access, I hope prices on pretty much all goods will be dictated by a free player-driven market like in many MMORPGS like Runescape. So if many many people mine ores, the huge supply will drive the price down, so these people should move to making money from other ways (although there are not many other ways lmao), however, if there is very high demand for these ores in like shipbuilding, then the price of ores will go up. Additionally, I would love it if the community can somehow make their own businesses that sell certain services, like transporting players/bodyguarding players/mercenaries etc.

I feel like players who attack neutral ones should be marked as "pirates", at least temporarily and all the plunder they get from attacking neutral players can only be sold on a different market with lower prices like a black market. This might incentivize players to not become pirates which should have a good effect on the economy.

Point 1, that's the point that Ville wants, but at this point, its too early to talk about designing an economy when it needs to be handheld constantly. Businesses and the likes are already set up with people making their own discord.

Point 2 on the piracy part... well, it depends on how transponder stuff would work, but all in all, too early to talk about.

 

[Azelous]

I plan to pump as many ships as possible into the economy. Mining is likely going to be the most popular activity, and so I heavily expect a surplus of resources unless stations are released.

I hope the economy is capable of real time price posting and able to present information in a way that doesn’t require third party programs, unlike Elite Dangerous.

 

[Tagarik]

Time will tell.
I personally just want to start a reliable company, or maintain it as co-founder.

Also planning to introduce better way of cargo transportation - cargo containers (just like irl) with usage of cargo beams.