Discovery Gaming Community

Now, are we all acquainted with Ecological Pyramids?
If not, clicky linky. Thank you.

Now.



The very basis of Discovery is trading and (now) mining.
They're the Primary Producers of the Discovery Ecological/Economic pyramid.
They produce the credits in Discovery, as the Primary Producers of the Ecological Pyramid produce energy.
In fact, they're the sole producers of credits.


Somewhere at the Consumer level lay the pirates of Discovery, yes?
They don't produce their own money, but they take it off of traders - the same way Consumers take energy off of Producers in an ecosystem. They're quite obviously Consumers.


Now.
I should now that It's very interesting how we're always told to "get escorts" while trading or mining, because it's the only effective way to survive the pirates. That effectively halves the base of the pyramid - or worse - and reduces the money making groups into even smallers ones, or actually encourages more Consumers to take money off of the Producer level.

Why is this interesting?
This is done while the pirates are perfectly capable of pirating solo.
The Consumers are the ones who do not need to team up, against the Producers who do.
A pirate can very effectively pirate by himself, alone - but traders essentially have to get escorts. Piracy is at pandemic levels nowadays, and nobody really wonders why. But.. why is it? Trading is hard. Traders move to piracy. It is a self-destructive, exponential growth function of the number of pirates - as pirates increase, traders decrease even faster.


Traders and miners, the source of all money, must team up together.
Pirates don't have to team up.



An inverted pyramid?
I'd think so, and I would hope anyone could.




Solution?
At bare minimum, make 5k transports the equivalent of cruisers with transport guns.
Two bombers could take that out easily enough. Maybe 5ks being even stronger is in order.
If you want to do a bit more, buff transport guns a bit more.
Give transports MORE guns, or actually make the armour the "armour > gun" house trains have worth something. Right now, the biggest producers are also the most vulnerable. They're supposed to have "more armour," but any trader can tell you that it doesn't begin to make up for the guns they've lost. This makes no sense at all.

Am I crazy?
Maybe.




I hope I'm at least slightly logical.


Because, y'know.
Inverted pyramids make no sense.





Why should we make the activity this mod is built on difficult?

Discovery pyramid now out of Order. (Pun intended?)

Richard, <3.

' Wrote:

Discovery pyramid now out of Order. (Pun intended?)

We're all doomed.

Dooooooomed. (link relevant to doom, not economy)

On a serious note though, Sprolfy my dear, you raise a very good point here.

Well - there is in fact a compromised balance to it. you mentioned your self that people move to piracy because trading is too hard if there is no teaming up. So what you suggest here is to totally turn this around. The result is obviously that indies will have a way tougher time pirating and rather start trading, which doesn't fix the problem.

So while parts of your analysis of the problem are indeed correct - they are not fixed by your proposed measures.

I enjoyed reading your stuff either way though:)

Edit: Other layers: Weapons dealers, signatures, bountyhunters etc etc.

I'd beg to differ, actually.
Piracy wouldn't become bread-and-butter, but the opportunity for it to be like it was meant to be would be much more open than it is now.

[12:54:16 AM] Sprolf: I mean, piracy could be epic.
[12:54:27 AM] Sprolf: Not the hum-drum "Olol another train. 2milordai."
[12:54:47 AM] Sprolf: It's like, a pang of fear and the adrenaline of chance when a train barrels out of the tradelane.
[12:55:03 AM] Sprolf: You say "Oh, shi-" but you don't know if it's in fear or in expectation.

Well, sir, if you are looking for gang piracy, you might want to think about raiding miners! Lots of fun involved in there - for both sides!

Or you could always use a VHF ^^'

Oh, trust me.
I've had quite enough of miners for a lifetime.

Why do they F1?
Why do they run until the edge of the map?


It is because it's so damn hard to fill that ship up and so damn easy to lose it all.
Mining ships should be like the liners of 4.84. (Or something.)



EDIT: Also, a VHF is my main piracy ship.
Still too easy.

' Wrote:Well - there is in fact a balance to it. you mentioned your self that people move to piracy because trading is too hard if there is no teaming up. So what you suggest here is to totally turn this around. The result is obviously that indies will have a way tougher time pirating and rather start trading.

So while parts of your analysis of the problem are indeed correct - they are not fixed by your proposed measures.

I enjoyed reading your stuff either way though:)

Edit: Other layers: Weapons dealers, signatures, bountyhunters etc etc.

Supposedly, according to the developers, trade is meant to be the thing which makes everything else, so what is wrong with there being a shift to trading? (I could be utterly mistaken in thinking this is is the developer's wishes, please advise me if this is not the case.)

I too am unsure whether buffing transports is the way to go. I would start by fixing our economy, then observing, then working out what needs to be changed.

The other layers are all invalid and not important really, as all credits are derived from trading at one point or another.

Well, as long as you get things done without people complaining again about the actual fix (i e in this case hypothetical indies who can't pirate. -> lots of whine) its a fair deal.

Also: If there is a raise of trade income, will this really translate into more traders or rather into higher tax fees? Does this really fix our problem or just lead to an inflation which goes both ways, one may ask.

And yes, I am ashamed that i'm not capable of proposing a different solution, thanks for asking ^^