Discovery Gaming Community

We all know that the value of the credit throughout Sirius here on Disco has dropped absurdly low, far beyond the average value seen throughout single-player. Pirates demand two million - two MILLION! - credits from trade convoys as a matter of course, law enforcement levies similar and occasionally even higher fines, the (theoretical) LPI weekly paycheck is a million big 'uns. Traders rake in mountains of credits, millions upon millions, simply for freighting cargo between points A and B. What, exactly, is the lone credit worth these days?

Back in single-player, Trent described the million-credit deal he pulled off with Lonnigan as being "the deal of a lifetime", right? I wonder what Trent would think now, seeing that multiples of his jackpot deal's payout are being coughed up for such (in the abstract sense) trivial tasks as shooting down Liberty Rogues or mining up some Silver. Another example: among the rumors to be found on Pacifica Base in Bering, there's one that describes the income Republican Shipping maintained prior to the Eighty Years War. That rumor places that sum at a supposedly unimaginable several million credits a day and describes such a balance as being astounding and hitherto unequalled - yet all a pirate needs to do is halt and extort a single Republican Shipping transport, one transport!, to top the entire company's daily income in its glory days?

Honestly, the financial condition in Sirius is reminding me of the Yugoslawian dinar or the Ed Meeses in Snow Crash. Something needs to be done to restore equilibrium to the noble credit; it can't even be used as toilet paper, because credits are digital money. Besides, toilet paper holds its value better anyway. My proposal is as follows: restore the credit to something approaching its pre-Disco value by dividing all incomes and paychecks made by players by a certain (flat?) percentage. Cargo hauls are too large? Drop the value of the cargo. With 4.85 in effect, we already have a solid trade system that ought to simplify any financial reforms. Missions don't scale well enough to be economically viable? Cut back their payouts by a figure based on the level of the mission in question. Naturally, prices for ships and equipment would also have to be reduced to conform to newly lowered credit and income rates.

-Zig, amateur financial wizard. Thoughts?

So basically just divide every sum of money in the game for absolutely anything by say.. 100 ?

Anyways, I do agree that there's a problem you laid out. And I do agree that it'd be good if they had more 'value' again.

But I do fear that it might be too much work, as the admins would have to edit each player file and decrease the money there, and there'd also be a problem with the credit card chips.

Yes, sadly there'd be too much work to do. It's not an impossible project, but a highly ambitious one.

Thing is, it's not the Credit unit itself that is devalued, but the sheer scale of capital generation that occurs due to the enormous revenue potential of trade ships. Also the sheer numbers of these ships in space. The credit value of pirate extortion is based upon the trader's profits, which themselves run into ludicrous millions upon millions of credits.

Of course, you need to factor in that in RP, ships in freelancer don't cross systems in minutes, and the entire sector within an hour. Long-haul runs are supposed to take days or weeks.

Thankfully there are only so many commodities whose value is dictated by the players; we'd be utterly screwed if we had to depend on player economies for ships, shields and weaponry.

A trader's profits are tied to time too. Most high-profit trade runs are also long-distance trade runs.

Now sure, I can make 10 million in one trade run, but if it takes me 45min to do that one leg, it's incredibly painful for a trader to run into even one pirate demanding two million. And these pirates nowadays come in asking 3, 4, or 5 million? please. A personal favorite is two pirates sitting in a trade-lane, not grouped, and expecting to each be paid 2-3 million by the trader.

These lolpirates don't get the economic fact that 2 million credits (or in that case 4) is pretty much a half hour of work for a trader. The problem with Zig's suggestion is these idiots wouldn't get that credits are worth even less if this system's implemented, and still ask for 2 mil+ every time they see a trader.

Muahaha, I nearly always ask for 3-5 milion... Them traders need to realise they are about to get blown wide open with a multitude of guns.

But yes hyperinfltion is plain strange. Armor upgrades basicly make that. 20M for an equiped fighter.... bloody expensive. It would be great if we'd reduce pricess of some stuff. And keep say battleship at the same price and boost them.

Money may really be hard to get.

Believe me, if the trader's in RP, we do realize we're getting blown up. When we do, depending on the cargo, it could be upwards of 3 million gone. Cargo is also expensive.

As for prices, that's be nice to see go down too. 5000 for explosives and countermeasures? what honestly is the reason for that? so they won't be spammed? doesn't work. Countermeasures don't work anyway. If they're going to cost 5k per shot AND energy AND slow refire, the should be more than 85% effective. (85%, HAH. Either that or the TrainCD is way too effective.)

yes, sour grapes. and not toward any of the established pirates too. I like running into Phate, the OPG, the Black Pearl, or some other well-known established ones. Apologies. Razor-happy lack of patience gunboat pirates are a bit tough to swallow.

I agree with this, compleatly. I give away 1 million credits daily, for no reason, and make 5 million credits per run. But we would either have a whole mod's worth of work to do, or 2 months work, and a player wipe.

/sighned

and pirates should ask how ever much money depending on the ship, cargo, and ranking

The fundamental flaw with any attempt to revamp the credit value is that demand never changes, prices are always stable, anyone can make the same runs over and over and be guaranteed a huge payout, even if everyone in the universe is filling that same demand.
So, the money is essentially generated from nowhere, because the benevolent buyers never get tired of goods. Even if you get rid of all the money in the system right now, and scale everything down, in 6 months time you will still have the problem of too much money in circulation.
Unfortunately the only solution to this is of course a dynamic changing market for goods and services based on player and NPC actions. Jobs need to be able to dry up, planets cannot be terraforming forever and require the same goods indefinitely etc. Its just not possible in freelancer to implement an actual economy.

The one thing I can see as limiting inflation is taxation. Ive seen it work in other games (chosen space for example) and lawful citizens must pay a healthy chunk in taxes, money that essentially disappears from the world but makes sense for governments to collect. It would be collected on a monthly basis and be either automatically withdrawn by the house governments of the player's home birth or be a voluntary thing, where not paying has consequences on player relations with government factions.

heh, well done in many countries .. i dont mind really. but i rather just leave it as it is, we got used to it