(04-29-2022, 05:06 PM)Zentor Wrote: It is understandable that ppl gravitate towards the ID. "Interspace Commerce" sounds (to me at least) like a pretty sweet international trade company. I myself own an IC 5ker.
But as I've told a few ppl, I'm interested in finding unique gameplay niches for as many factions/groups as possible. If it is possible, this would be the beginning of IC's uniqueness, having more of its gameplay shaped around its unique role as a financial institution, i.e. add banking, investments, have an idea even for a stock market where folks could purchase shares of player-owned groups, that fluctuate with actual play (that one needs quite a bit more thought).
I'd like to see Kishiro manufacturing needed electronics for use by other players in productions, Synth Foods manufacturing their faction commodity "Biodome Materials" for use in Biodome Extensions on POBs, Lane Hackers being able to accrue resources and funds overtime for periodic sabotage of gates and lanes in actuality, for Ageira to actually produce gate lane parts needed to complete projects, construction companies smelting alloys from metals they've purchased from mining factions who've refined them from ores.
Essentially, a player-driven economy.
Less, haul ore x to base y and call it a day. If any of these come about, we won't do it by stealing away the ability to generate credits.
I'd have no problem seeing stuff like this. It would demonstrate a lot if successful. I don't know about ditching their 5ker, but a new commodity would be cool. For pretty much every corporation they could have their own commodity that you need their OF ID to get and provide exclusive trading commodities. Then any OF that forms for one of those corp ID's can have a 'product' to put for sale on a POB, something with intermediate value, still leaving mineable commodities as the most valuable.
And you can always try to go into a 'semi' real insurance business here. Some POB owners might pay you actual premiums in credits for base insurance coverage! Lose your POB? Buy a policy for 20 million a month, get 500 mil if you lose your base. If you get 10 bases to sign up, that's 200 mil a month in premiums. That's 2.4 billion a year to cover any potential payouts just from those 10 clients. Come up with a bunch of different value level policies! You can always wind up using those credits to buy/sell other stuff for profit as well try to get the most out of it. If you need a sudden pay out, how many around here have the cash to issue a loan with decent interest? (and I imagine the need for bounty hunters if someone falls behind on their payments).
As to a player driven economy, I totally agree. You all should sit down and hammer out a system, with a bunch of options that players, or definitely OF's, could exercise to do a thing in-game/inrp. Outline what can be built, put it out there, let people know there is a bunch of stuff they can do that will come as long as they do the work. The best way to exact change to something in the game world should be by doing stuff online. Basically, link the player economy to a lot of serious player development options, and really get the most out of long term group efforts.
I am supportive of the idea to start making factions more unique and different from each other beyond the different ores / different factions and OF mining bonuses. It would hopefully stimulate further inter-faction cooperation or competition when the ability for any one faction to do everything is changed a bit.
Please consider us open to any changes to Interspace Commerce, as we discussed with Zentor a short while ago, and would even go as far as playing test subject for a change to the ID if this comes to pass. I'm all for new gameplay, and we are still keen on IC despite these potential changes down the road.