Economy.

[SubtleSloth]

The purpose of this thread is to figure out for myself and the community how exactly the economy in Starbase will work.

My vision of the economy is as follows:
1. Mostly player driven, as people do things in the game (mine and sell, mine and process, build ships, sell blueprints/ships) they set their price either based on supply and demand and whatever other factors they deem necessary (time/risk taken).

2. Player made YOLOL scripts and blueprints will be available on the market. (Not sure how the YOLOL system works quite yet, but I’m sure there is a way to make semi-universal scripts)

3. Mega stations and trade hubs have NPC input to economy as well, BUT, the input from NPC’s is directly affected by player input to the economy in the region/station (supply and demand).

4. Lastly, taxes. The taxes we pay on anything at a trade hub/station, ESPECIALLY dev made ones, will go towards a station upgrade fund or something of the sort, R&D if you will. Then later down the line, the company that owns the station can further expand their infrastructure and add hubs around the universe, or upgrade the current ones (to an extent). Maybe add jobs for people to bring resources to the hub to add more docks or whatever.

If any of this is ACTUALLY true about the dev vision of the economy, or if NONE of it is, please voice your opinions (and the facts please!).

 

[Caddrel]

I really like your idea of selling blueprints and scripts, however I can't think of any way to stop reselling/copying that doesn't quickly devolve into in-game digital rights management.

On the other points, for me the economy is one of the main reasons why you would make this game an MMO, and one of the game's main potential selling points. Otherwise I would say most of the game's goals could be achieved just as well, if not better, with a typical smaller scale multiplayer game.

My initial impression (hope?) is that the developers intend to make the economy entirely player driven, rather than mostly player driven. Developers will be in charge of the NPC faction, from what I understand. This gives them the time to develop the in-game tools that they can use to run that faction, and later players themselves can use to run their own factions.

I would say the more honest and prudent the developers are in running their faction, the smoother the economy will run in the long term. In the initial stages the economy will largely depend on their priorities. They're creating a new currency from cash, and printing money for it every time they transfer it to players.

I don't think they should spawn resources (materials or power) out of nowhere. If a resource runs out or is in short supply, that's for the players to provide. The developers have the authority as the currency issuer to create money; they can use that to extrinsically set player priorities as needed.

If they run their faction as if it was a genuine in-game organisation, the decision making will be much clearer, and it will be far easier to tune their overall economic system than if they "grease the wheels" by creating resources out of nowhere.