Discovery 5.1 - Aftershock: Dev Diary #7, Of People And Piracy

[Petitioner]

Discovery 5.1 - Aftershock: Dev Diary #7
Of People And Piracy

or:
"How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Light Arms"

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Hello users. Today we shall discuss the economy. Unfortunately, no cool images to accompany this post, so wordlets and diagram enjoyers can click off now.

In 5.1 we have a number of absolutely groundbreaking new economy features available to us, including split buy/sell prices thanks to the absolutely amazing work done by @Aingar in the Coding Department, as well as a system to automatically and dynamically adjust prices based on a number of factors (which still mostly have to be manually defined). What this means for you is opportunity, as we can now create a lot of new trade routes that shouldn't break anything — all of them will be fully viable (meaning you can indeed make a profit running them) without having to be manually tweaked and balance-tested against every other route in the game. Most of this isn't new information, as the New Economy of 5.0 shipped with many of these features (save the split buy/sell prices, which is a big thing in its own right and certainly opens up a lot of doors for POB owners). We've heard your complaints about 5.0's economy loud and clear, and we're working on addressing it while minimizing technical debt (which is a part of what made 5.1 take so long). Thankfully, these new tools mean that's easier than ever. With that out of the way, let's get to our changes.

Cargo Piracy

First we'll start off by looking at the greatest kind of piracy; cargo piracy. Specifically, it's now against the rules due to popular demand being made a lot more viable with a number of tweaks that I've done, with a lot of help from @Haste, @Aingar, @jammi, and the Economy team members. Unlawful bases (eg Mactan, Arranmore, Kyoto) will buy locally-sourced High-Risk Commodities at prices which are very slightly artificially-depressed. This gentle lowering of price represents the fact that unlawful factions (generally) have less liquid capital at their disposal than their straight-laced counterparts, and helps keep cargo piracy balanced versus regular trading. In addition to locally-produced HRCs, they will also buy HRCs which pass through the local area. This means that Padua will buy Platinum (because it's from the area) as well as Niobium (because it passes through Galileo on the way to Denver).

There are also faction-specific gimmicks — every single Lane Hacker base will buy Trade Lane parts at full price, every Xeno base will buy Light Arms, etc. Not every faction has a "gimmick commodity" that is always in demand for them, and this is something that I'm looking to eventually address if the changes I've implemented turn out well.

Yo-Ho an' a Bottle of Rum

If there's one thing pirates love, it's their liquor. Every unlawful (and lawful!) base should now either buy or resell their preferred alcohol, with Liberty Ale in demand at Rogue, Xeno, and DSE bases while Samura and the GC are more inclined to the refined flavor of sake. However, everyone needs some variety in their life, and unlawful bases bordering foreign regions will also purchase the foreign liquor(s) at a reduced price. What this means is that smugglers will have a great time taking Rheinbier from New Berlin to Ronneburg, but might get caught in the crossfire before ever entering the Hammen Hole — a Corsair convoy filled with morale-boosting Rum sourced from Crete bound for Battlecruiser Penitence has come under fire from Hessian raiders, as the lads back at Vogtland are just as thirsty for Rum as they are for Rheinbier.

Rum isn't the only returning booze. You read that right — Rum, Whiskey, and Vodka are all back. All these and every other type of drink will be in demand at House capital planets, luxury resort destinations, and in some cases, the bases of the producing factions' allies. There are resell points as well, so if your Omega-52 visa got denied by the Commissariat, you can still get ahold of that sweet potato juice. Just be prepared to pay extra. Rejoice, o Orbital enjoyers and RP-cargo-bazaar POB owners.

Speaking of OS&C...

I've added in quite a number of human cargo routes as well. While we don't have thirty different types of tailor-made human cargo (Haste has me at gunpoint call the police), I've taken the time to add in regular passenger routes of both the A-to-B variety as well as the multi-stop variety. Every luxury destination should now have something to take to it and from it, whether or not you are moving human cargo. There may be a few oversights with the non-human cargo portion of this; please give your feedback once the patch drops so that any gaps in the system can be corrighted ASAP!

There's also non-luxury passenger routes. If doing a stint on the Wall kept Orbital from hiring you, your freelance people-moving business can still prosper moving commuters from house planets to workplace-type bases and taking various products back before picking up another load of workers who have a shift to get to. While some of these "commuter" bases have a few extra types of routes available to them that I won't spoil here, for the most part these routes are intended to be reliable, consistent, and flexible.

What about POBs?

I'm glad you asked, because I didn't have a segue for this part. One of the longest-running complaints from many POB owners and non-POB owners alike is how illogical base supplying often becomes, especially in the case of codename factories. We're all familiar with the trope of unlawful bases permitting the owner's Interspace 5k to dock to deliver relics and azurite, and similarly ridiculous cases. In an attempt to make this less necessary, and better represent the role of Sirius and Gallia's quasi-lawfuls in the economy, we're making use of the dynamic price adjustment features that our beloved FLHookers have given us to introduce HRC resellers. Quasi-lawful bases (and in a few edge cases, unlawful bases) will now sell items like xeno relics, azurite gas, and refined metals — at a significant markup.

This is in no way intended to supersede POB refineries, as the markups are very extensive. Rather, you now have the option to pay for convenience, and no longer rely on your freelancer alts to make your unlawful jump drive factory feasible. You can still do that if you want to, though. This is also related to cargo piracy, as these same unlawful and quasi-lawful fencing hubs will also purchase these commodities. If you're a Rogue and you've never even heard of a """Battlecruiser PPAC""" in your got dang life, that azurite you just poached off some Ageira sap will be in demand at a local Junker base. I've spread these resale points out across as many quasi-lawful bases as possible within every given house, doing my best to keep them in accordance with lore and roleplay as I can—as an example, Ithaca has metals to trade, while Heisenberg has xeno relics, and Kinkaku-ji wants a whole lot of gold (I guess that's why they're called the Golden C! *badum-tssh*)

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[Mr. Lime]

But will NPC convoys carry cargo once more? I want that casino thrill of gambling on it being a load of Diamonds in a shipping lane full of Oxygen.

[Czechmate]

Will pirating ore at mining spots be viable again without a pob?

[Petitioner]

But will NPC convoys carry cargo once more? I want that casino thrill of gambling on it being a load of Diamonds in a shipping lane full of Oxygen.

I miss the thrill too, believe me, but it's really really hard to make this remotely worthwhile while also keeping it from being giga-busted. We're looking into ways to make this happen again, but I wouldn't hold your breath over it.

Will pirating ore at mining spots be viable again without a pob?

Right now most bases just buy unrefined ores for their base value. Working on integrating ore into cargo piracy is a high priority for me, but it must be done carefully; an incautious implementation of this could very easily make POB refining simply not worthwhile, and nobody wants that.

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[Geno]

It's always neat to see some commodities coming back to the game. But is there ever going to be a plan to include pre 5.0 "RP fluff commodities" to the game? I mean the kind of items that have no impact on the economy, but are just fun to have on your ship. Pineal amulets, holo-tainment bands, holo-sculptures, Sunbucks, that kind of stuff is dearly missed and they used to add so much character to every base you would go to. I used to love making my ship look like it was hauling a ton of random crap in the hold, just like a regular spaceship would! I mean, heck. Not even Fort Bush, THE LPI base, is selling Sunbucks anymore. Are you ever going to take this into consideration?

[Couden]

What about VO return? Maybe some PoB Crafts via Munitions? Also What about some HRC routes to Mykolaiv (Aralsk) ?

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[Petitioner]

It's always neat to see some commodities coming back to the game. But is there ever going to be a plan to include pre 5.0 "RP fluff commodities" to the game? I mean the kind of items that have no impact on the economy, but are just fun to have on your ship. Pineal amulets, holo-tainment bands, holo-sculptures, Sunbucks, that kind of stuff is dearly missed and they used to add so much character to every base you would go to. I used to love making my ship look like it was hauling a ton of random crap in the hold, just like a regular spaceship would! I mean, heck. Not even Fort Bush, THE LPI base, is selling Sunbucks anymore. Are you ever going to take this into consideration?

I would very much like to do this.

What about VO return? Maybe some PoB Crafts via Munitions? Also What about some HRC routes to Mykolaiv (Aralsk) ?

Aralsk and other shipyard/research bases will have imports in 5.1. If there are any that don't, let us know as soon as the patch drops and fixing them will be my #1 priority.
As for Volgograd Ordinance, Kemwer Munitions, and APM Advanced Hardware, do not take this as authoritative, but my personal preference would be to re-add these as POB-crafted HRCs. However, this would require a lot of work from the econ team because these commodities would behave very differently from refined metals, so I have no idea how we would balance this. I'm personally a fan of the idea of bringing back these cute faction-specific commodities in whatever form but we want to make sure that they're actually adding value to the game that goes beyond being yet another interchangeable commodity with no real personality.

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[Toaster]

With the various region specific alcoholic beverages returning, does that also mean that we will once more have a cozy, comfortable trade route touring the various house capitals again?

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Olivia Sable

[Petitioner]

With the various region specific alcoholic beverages returning, does that also mean that we will once more have a cozy, comfortable trade route touring the various house capitals again?

Do you mean something like NL: Gin -> NB: Rheinbier -> NT: Sake -> IDF: Wine -> NY: Liberty Ale? As far as I know that's already totally doable on live, but if it isn't, then yes, routes like that will absolutely be viable in 5.1. You could even do a powerful mixed cargo run including both House liquors and House passengers.

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[Kauket]

Oh boi does this mean I can finally trade from our own npc faction bases to other bases now?

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