Value of Ore and mining

[Agmen of Eladesor]

Quite simply, the price of Ore compared to refined commodities is not set to realistic values; it is all based around trade balance.
You're welcome to justify it how you like inrp, but that's the truth from an oorp perspective.

Personally I don't like the mining system as it is currently because of its lack of realism relative to the original Freelancer economy. However, I don't have the time or knowledge for how to provide a different system that would be better for gameplay.

Would something along the lines of simply multiplying by 5 the lowest selling price of a commodity, and then increasing the highest selling price by an amount that is still in proportion work?

According to my FLStat, Aluminum sells for 480 on Nuremburg and is purchased for 3314 at Lancaster, giving you a net profit of 2834 per unit. So increase the base cost of aluminum to 2400 at Nuremburg, and have it sell at Lancaster for (say) 5500. Then you get a profit of 3100 per item delivered (15.5 mil for a 5K ship), but your original investment is now 12 mil. As a side effect, paying the pirate instead of saying kill me makes more sense, since you stand to lose 27 mil total, instead of only your 2.5 mil investment at 480 plus profit.

I'm willing to admit I could be wrong, but I think the only thing that has to be edited are the commodity items - you don't have to go through each individual base, do you?

And in those cases where simply multiplying by 5 would NOT increase the base price to above the highest price of ore, then simply increase the base price of the refined commodity until it is at least 50% higher than the best price for ore. You won't change the amount of money available in game from trading, you're simply increasing the size of the markers.

And incidentally making assaulting assorted NPC ships MUCH more profitable as well. Instead of mining, you get two pirate gunboats working together with, say, 3 junker transports. The pirates shoot all the NPC transports hauling refined metals, the junkers haul in the cargo and transport it to bases for sale, and they all split the profits. The player that happens to fly through might even be left alone (yeah, right!) simply because they're making too much money from NPC's ...

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Oh god... The end of days... Agmen agreed with me.

[hungry-bank]

Indeed, increasing the costs will make some traders think twice before f1-ing or waiting for their death.