Player Driven Currency Through Tagging

[Narial]

So welcome to my idealistic world. The topic today is tags! So here is the premises:

Credits are created normally, how the game intended it. But then factions (or even companies but they would be more useless as tags are a matter of believing in the tag and those behind it) can tag credits for themselves, say an encryption was set on the credits that the factions "banking body" overlooks. Why would Endos use tags? Well taging can be a form of control over a faction's territory. A big shot from out of the sector loaded with credits coming to buy you out and start economic warfare? Well nope their credits are useless in that factions territory because of the factions tag. They have to invest in that factions markets, fostering growth and power of factions. Taged credit would still be usable in normal markets that don't have tags and it would be up to the factions wither or not credits would become untaged once leaving the controlled markets. Tags would be at the whim of belief. Your tag have nothing backing it? Well your tag in all intensive purposes useless. Tags don't only have to be used for faction domination they can also be like gift card or reward programs. Where every purchase the customer gets some taged store credit for their next purchase. In conclusion I believe allow players to tag credits to be beneficial in the long run. It would add to political climates and be a way to foster local economies.

Here is a rundown.
-Credits can be taged by companies or factions
-the tag will not exclude them from non-taged economies
-tags will protect local econmies and force rich over space conglomerates to invest in the local economy. Or you know, kill everyone even thinking of using the local tag and force their domain over all!
-Tags can be untaged if they enter foreign markets
-The more options for how tags can work the better
-Traveling without leaning the political climate of the area will be a risk when you run out of fuel and the gibglubs only take shlamnak tags. Now you are at the whim of others or call the buddy to pick you up.
-Possibility for economic warfare, yes please
-I think it would add a cool layer to the game.

 

[Verbatos]

While it might be a neat idea to "tag" currencies, I just don't think it should be implemented as you have suggested.
To expand on my point, having entirely different currencies for every. Single. Station. will be a massive pain in the ass to keep track of, since everyone and their mother will want their own special currency to spend at only their station.

I have an alternative idea that is similar to your tag idea but different in some very crucial ways.
I came up with a concept a while back for a coin system in the game. Rather than credits you could get a physical item to trade with and that can be stored in inventories, but can also be created by the player.
Say a player gets their hands on a large faction as well as a large amount of spare, say, aluminium. They could take their large quantity of metal and run it through a special "coin press" that will turn the metal into coins and leave a mark on the item saying which press it came out of.
Any player could then take these coins and trade them in where they like, a shop might say they are never taking aluminium coins, or are only taking coins from a specific factions presses.
A player could also melt the coins down (for a diminishing return) and get at least some of their metal back, which would mean that if you got your hands on a lot of worthless coins, you can do something better with them than just throw them away.

The reason why I think that an item system like this would be better than a credit system would be that a system of virtual credits with no direct ties to any sort of item would get confusing to manage. Currently, the game just has flat universal credits, which are kept in a bottomless personal bank and can be used anywhere, which is good since there is only one type of credit. If people could "claim" credits as you say, it would require an entirely separate menu of sorts to run through, where my idea of having items corresponding to currency allows them to be more easily sorted, transported, and traded, since you could just throw a bunch of them on the ground and look at their colours, rather than having to sort and see what exactly you are getting and from where.

What you have is a really cool idea! But rather than having it built on top of the existing credit system, it should be added in as an item system that would be easier to keep track of.

 

[Narial]

"having entirely different currencies for every. Single. Station. "

That is misrepresent my point. Sure every faction and their mother could have their own tags and be mercantile king pins. But they would be limiting themselves to their own markets. Or conquering other markets to add to their own. I just think having a universal system is a necessary evil but taging would add economic politics. Don't like that x is using y tag? Conquer them and force them to us your z tag. I think shying away from stuff just because it brings an element of difficulty and confusion is doing a disservice to adding a layer of political intrigue.

Physical currency would be cool but its still universal and kinda low tech. Maybe to tie in with my idea some factions/companies could tag credits to physical items. Though I am not 100% onboard with that idea.

 

[five]

I like the idea of having different currencies in game, besides the standard one. This would open up another job branch (you specialise in switching currencies for other players). Tho I am not 100% certain that this is a good idea that should be implemented into the game. Sure: It opens up alot of possibilities, but it should be in the hands of the devs more than the players. Because for example we have 10 different currencies that corespond to 4 parts of Eos ring and other currencies for the moons. Players could decide to unify to make other currencies dump in value. For example: 8 different regions unify to dumb the eos north regions currencies (North-East, North-West). Without this we would boil it down to 8 currencies and this would probably go on until there are only 2 currencies and then the last currency is decided by whoever has more territory. This is why it should stay in the hands of the devs and not of the players. You could make having a regional currency beneficial. For example: If you pay with universal credits you have to pay extra credits. Professional Merchants would have several bank accounts with currencies to avoid having to pay taxes all the time. Certain industrial factions will settle in 1 region. I personally would settle on a moon, yes its far away from eos, but you are one of few and its more likely that you can cooperate with these few to control your financial/currency region.

 

[Narial]

I like the idea of having different currencies in game, besides the standard one. This would open up another job branch (you specialise in switching currencies for other players). Tho I am not 100% certain that this is a good idea that should be implemented into the game. Sure: It opens up alot of possibilities, but it should be in the hands of the devs more than the players. Because for example we have 10 different currencies that corespond to 4 parts of Eos ring and other currencies for the moons. Players could decide to unify to make other currencies dump in value. For example: 8 different regions unify to dumb the eos north regions currencies (North-East, North-West). Without this we would boil it down to 8 currencies and this would probably go on until there are only 2 currencies and then the last currency is decided by whoever has more territory. This is why it should stay in the hands of the devs and not of the players. You could make having a regional currency beneficial. For example: If you pay with universal credits you have to pay extra credits. Professional Merchants would have several bank accounts with currencies to avoid having to pay taxes all the time. Certain industrial factions will settle in 1 region. I personally would settle on a moon, yes its far away from eos, but you are one of few and its more likely that you can cooperate with these few to control your financial/currency region.

Its entropy and so the centralization of 2 dominant factions/companies is theoretically possible and probable. (Of course Devs could do monopoly smashing) Even without tagging the dominant factions could impose economic warfare depending on the mechanics. The vastness of space does make this a long long time for that to happen so I don't think we should pull back scared of monopolies. Rebellions are also possible to counter domination. Dumping of another faction/companies value would be apart of the economic warfare! But no idea is safe from minmaxing so that should be taken into account...

 

[Crazy_CAR27]

I love this idea but I agree that it should be controlled by Devs and not players, so a small pit-stop Can't just have their own credits instead the most powerful factions/Companies (determined by the devs) will be allowed to have their own currency