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+---- Thread: Money making balance (/showthread.php?tid=181020)
Money making balance - Darkseid667 - 06-20-2020
Missions are finally more fun and make loads of money if done right. Very good in my opinion, everything that makes money at a reasonable rate demonstrably boosts player activity (just look at Omicron Delta).
But to balance things out, voices have been heard to adjust trading and ore trading, which has been downgraded to 2nd place in money-making. Some people find it annoying that the ore trade has been nerfed, supposedly to reduce the sellpoints to create bottlenecks and force player interaction. That is one point one could start to balance things out.
My proposal however benefits traders and ore traders alike without having to elaborately fine-tune the commodities/economy: to make trading runs more profitable, give large trains/transports above, let's say, 4k more cargo space to even things out. It has alwys been a slap in the face when an expensive 5k transport is only capable of hauling 50% more than a transport half or 1/3rd it's size. Make the cargo space of these space giants 50-100% larger to reflect the size, volume and maneuverability, and beyond that, make POB storage compartments 50-100% larger. Makes ore trading more useful, POBs more useful, gives miners in the field a wider range of profit when filling transports and makes building POBs easier (seriously, 2 cargo spaces per hull segment?). Even the Pirates may profit.
Everyone is happy,no one suffers, gamemasters/developers should be able to do this in less than an hour's work.
RE: Money making balance - JadeTornado - 06-20-2020
I can't see how this would help in terms of profits. The pirates will demand 50-100% higher fee, won't they?
RE: Money making balance - Champ - 06-20-2020
I think missions should come third in profitability to transport trade runs, freighter trade runs, and mining. Trading is essential because it drives mobile, vulnerable targets, to drive piracy, to drive lawful activity and escalation of force.
IMO missions driving capship activity in Delta or hordes of in-group capships does nothing for community interaction and server activity.
I'm against increasing the cargo space of 5K. A transport 2/3 the size might be much cheaper and make slightly less, but over the lifetime of the ship, there's a huge advantage to the 5K.
I also think that profitability should be scaled back a considerable bit. Everyone's at the endgame and it takes barely any time to work up to the big ticket items, and that earning and growing is a big deal. It's a mechanism that naturally reduces the number of inexperienced community members at the helm of capships.
RE: Money making balance - Darkseid667 - 06-20-2020
(06-20-2020, 06:02 AM)SlaveLabor Wrote: I can't see how this would help in terms of profits. The pirates will demand 50-100% higher fee, won't they?
But most of the time the traders won't meet a pirate, will they? And profits for pirates are still profits.
RE: Money making balance - Grumblesaur - 06-20-2020
(06-20-2020, 06:14 AM)Champ Wrote: I think missions should come third in profitability to transport trade runs, freighter trade runs, and mining. Trading is essential because it drives mobile, vulnerable targets, to drive piracy, to drive lawful activity and escalation of force.
IMO missions driving capship activity in Delta or hordes of in-group capships does nothing for community interaction and server activity.
I'm against increasing the cargo space of 5K. A transport 2/3 the size might be much cheaper and make slightly less, but over the lifetime of the ship, there's a huge advantage to the 5K.
I also think that profitability should be scaled back a considerable bit. Everyone's at the endgame and it takes barely any time to work up to the big ticket items, and that earning and growing is a big deal. It's a mechanism that naturally reduces the number of inexperienced community members at the helm of capships.
I would agree that overall the cashflow should be lower, but I don't think that missions ought to be at the bottom of the food chain. Missions require actively paying attention to the game, which is something that's underemphasized with trading. I think if mission zones were made to be farther away from the bases that offer them, we'd see more player-to-player interactions arise from them, especially if the route to the mission crosses common routes through the system it's given in. This would give opportunistic players a wider window of time to reach their foes and interfere with the mission.
The excessive payout of a lot of game processes has, I think, devalued large capital ships and transports, and distorted the perception of risk regarding POBs. It may encourage better-coordinated defenses and more meticulous planning if the few hundred million credits needed to build one is less like "a week's worth of trading" and more like "a considerable amount of money not spent lightly".
While we're at it, we could try making fighters dirt cheap in addition to such an economic rebalance, to perhaps incentivize would-be cap-grinders to try out the smaller ships in between trading sessions.
I suppose, though, that some traders are so tenacious they won't stop until they can afford the thing they want.
RE: Money making balance - Darkseid667 - 06-20-2020
(06-20-2020, 06:14 AM)Champ Wrote: I think missions should come third in profitability to transport trade runs, freighter trade runs, and mining. Trading is essential because it drives mobile, vulnerable targets, to drive piracy, to drive lawful activity and escalation of force.
IMO missions driving capship activity in Delta or hordes of in-group capships does nothing for community interaction and server activity.
I'm against increasing the cargo space of 5K. A transport 2/3 the size might be much cheaper and make slightly less, but over the lifetime of the ship, there's a huge advantage to the 5K.
I also think that profitability should be scaled back a considerable bit. Everyone's at the endgame and it takes barely any time to work up to the big ticket items, and that earning and growing is a big deal. It's a mechanism that naturally reduces the number of inexperienced community members at the helm of capships.
Well, in times of a diminishing player-base (just wait till Corona wanes off) you have to do for the community whatever you can. And RP, well, I have repeatedly heard the opinion "if you want to RP, got to the forum, we are just here to blow up POBs".
BTW, capital ships aren't endgame, skill is endgame.
RE: Money making balance - E X O D I T E - 06-20-2020
I am mechanically rewarded for playing FL as a 3D space shooter. That's all that really matters in terms of the mission running vs trading/mining.
What I would like to see is local mission loot that sells nicely across Sirius for a good profit. That way, traders can buy the loot off the mission runners like how traders buy Ore from miners.
RE: Money making balance - Swallow - 06-20-2020
For past 100 hours of trading across the Sirius I've met pirates twice. Just in case.
RE: Money making balance - Czechmate - 06-20-2020
(06-20-2020, 06:39 AM)Darkseid667 Wrote:Yeah this - I love caps(06-20-2020, 06:14 AM)Champ Wrote: I think missions should come third in profitability to transport trade runs, freighter trade runs, and mining. Trading is essential because it drives mobile, vulnerable targets, to drive piracy, to drive lawful activity and escalation of force.
IMO missions driving capship activity in Delta or hordes of in-group capships does nothing for community interaction and server activity.
I'm against increasing the cargo space of 5K. A transport 2/3 the size might be much cheaper and make slightly less, but over the lifetime of the ship, there's a huge advantage to the 5K.
I also think that profitability should be scaled back a considerable bit. Everyone's at the endgame and it takes barely any time to work up to the big ticket items, and that earning and growing is a big deal. It's a mechanism that naturally reduces the number of inexperienced community members at the helm of capships.
Well, in times of a diminishing player-base (just wait till Corona wanes off) you have to do for the community whatever you can. And RP, well, I have repeatedly heard the opinion "if you want to RP, got to the forum, we are just here to blow up POBs".
BTW, capital ships aren't endgame, skill is endgame.
But the most skilled and experienced players seem to be on snubs actually. I'm sure I will compete the circle one day as well.
I consider 23-30 hours of pure grind in a game to be sufficient for one maxxed out battleship anyways
RE: Money making balance - Thyrzul - 06-25-2020
(06-20-2020, 06:46 AM)E X O D I T E Wrote: I am mechanically rewarded for playing FL as a 3D space shooter. That's all that really matters in terms of the mission running vs trading/mining.
Not really. Champ's comment got me thinking about it.
Before missions were profitable we had trading as the sole truly independent source of cash, mining falling back as semi-independent (you can do it solo but it's less profitable). Both involving vulnerable ships travelling through several choke points until their destination, and thus the Trader-Pirate-Police-Rebel-Military food chain was there to shake up the activity of many factions of many different kinds. It also had some feedback mechanisms, as for the occasional consumable replenishment the source of cash was still the bottom of the food chain.
Now we have another independent source of cash for those at the top of said food chain, well equipped to deal with mission targets, and since it's profitable, they'll stick to missions, and leave the trading-induced food chain completely. The result is that the middle elements of the trading-induced food chain - pirates, police, perhaps rebels too - will receive less activity, because their sources of activity are dependent of preceding chain elements, but may not possess the hardware required for mission grinding.
Maybe your own enjoyment is all that really matters for you, but on the larger scale missions becoming profitable has an effect on all of us, and not necessarily a positive effect.
Before missions were profitable we had trading as the sole truly independent source of cash, mining falling back as semi-independent (you can do it solo but it's less profitable). Both involving vulnerable ships travelling through several choke points until their destination, and thus the Trader-Pirate-Police-Rebel-Military food chain was there to shake up the activity of many factions of many different kinds. It also had some feedback mechanisms, as for the occasional consumable replenishment the source of cash was still the bottom of the food chain.
Now we have another independent source of cash for those at the top of said food chain, well equipped to deal with mission targets, and since it's profitable, they'll stick to missions, and leave the trading-induced food chain completely. The result is that the middle elements of the trading-induced food chain - pirates, police, perhaps rebels too - will receive less activity, because their sources of activity are dependent of preceding chain elements, but may not possess the hardware required for mission grinding.
Maybe your own enjoyment is all that really matters for you, but on the larger scale missions becoming profitable has an effect on all of us, and not necessarily a positive effect.