Artisan Archive
Thread: The economy is not based correctly.
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Pistol
Mon Jan 26, 2004 3:45 pm
#1
Why is everything based on credits per unit (CPU)? It makes no sense. As far as I can tell most people base everything's value on the amount of resources it took to build it. With resources going for about 3 to 1 to credits. Resources are a shifting and unsteady piece of gameplay. Some resources are much, much more valuable than others. Some resources vanish without a trace on entire servers.
Really the only constant in gameplay is maintenance costs because they are set down by the game. The maintenance costs should be basis of the economy. People are charging too much for resources. It does not cost 300,000 credits in maintenance costs to produce 100,000 (3:1) of any unit. It would probably only cost around 20,000 to 50,000 credits. That's a profit margin of 600%. That's totally insane!
I should go into the resource business and undercut everyone.
Soulforger
Mon Jan 26, 2004 3:55 pm
#2
Plus power, plus supply-and-demand
Someone who harvested an awesome, rare resource and saved it will get much more for it than if they sold right away.
Also, scout resources are more valuable because it's harder to collect enough resources to be worth making a schematic.
stryfex03
Mon Jan 26, 2004 4:19 pm
#3
Pistol wrote:
I should go into the resource business and undercut everyone.
Please do. And sell at 1-1.5 cpu (the biggest resource sellers on my server sell at 2 cpu or so).Let me know how it turns out.
Velisimner
Mon Jan 26, 2004 5:42 pm
#4
you dont like it, be my guest and try to change it. what yer sayingis complete idiocy, the economy is totally player made and maintained. theres no guild controlling resource prices they are simply controlled by the surveyors. to be honest a peson who ask 10/unit for a certain resource is a gouger i dont care if it has uber stats, it still costs the same to pull up. to answer yer question the economy is based correctly the devs wanted a player run economy and they got it. so shut up just shut up shut up...
ikolian
Mon Jan 26, 2004 7:51 pm
#5
You have to have a profit margin. As far as cost of production, here's an calculation:
Energy
Say you're using a BER 9 wind on an 50% spot (resonable). They cost 1440 to run a day and produce 6480 resources.
Mineral
Using a BER 4 personal harv: 720 creds a day, 600 power for a total cost of 854 per day (rounded) producing 4608 resources.
comes out to .1853 cpu to produce. Factor in overhead (redeeding or replacing the harvestor)
of 3000 every 5 days or so (resource shifts) and the cost is about .3155 cpu.
so, selling at 2 cpu I make 32256 resources with every personal harvestor for a cost of 10178, netting me a net profit of 54334. You're going to spend at least 3 hours total surveying, operating, and moving that harvestor, so you're making 18K an hour (favorable scenario). Now, tell me how much money a combat class can pull down in a similar amount of time. The resource miners really aren't making a killing compared to their combat counterparts. I see no need to change the resource economy as it stands now.
Energy
Say you're using a BER 9 wind on an 50% spot (resonable). They cost 1440 to run a day and produce 6480 resources.
Mineral
Using a BER 4 personal harv: 720 creds a day, 600 power for a total cost of 854 per day (rounded) producing 4608 resources.
comes out to .1853 cpu to produce. Factor in overhead (redeeding or replacing the harvestor)
of 3000 every 5 days or so (resource shifts) and the cost is about .3155 cpu.
so, selling at 2 cpu I make 32256 resources with every personal harvestor for a cost of 10178, netting me a net profit of 54334. You're going to spend at least 3 hours total surveying, operating, and moving that harvestor, so you're making 18K an hour (favorable scenario). Now, tell me how much money a combat class can pull down in a similar amount of time. The resource miners really aren't making a killing compared to their combat counterparts. I see no need to change the resource economy as it stands now.
DarthBukai
Mon Jan 26, 2004 11:37 pm
#6
The economy is based on the market. The market is all the consumers and what they're willing to pay. The market is complex and dynamic. Many people have difficulty understanding and predicting the market. Very often, people who do reliably predict the market will make lots of money and will be called cheaters by people who failed to reliably predict the market.
Pistol
Tue Jan 27, 2004 7:39 am
#7
"prices they are simply controlled by the surveyors."
I think that's the problem. Everything starts with the surveyors. Armorsmiths, weaponsmiths, etc, usually end up making things and selling them for maybe 10% - 20% over cost. When the resources to make something cost 100,000 its no wonder that descent armor and weapons cost so much.
But the point about combat classes making so much money is well put. If a combat class canafford 300K for an armor suit then the economy can't be too far off.
I wonder, if they lowered the income of the combat classes, would the price for resources eventually fall as well?
Another thing I think is bad and hurts the economy is that most surveyors don't really understand what they are selling. I've seen many charging too little for what can be considered SUPERB resources and charging too much for resources that are only good for grinding.
With all the variation of the different resources it makes it difficult to really put a price on a resource. A resource might have 1000 mallebility but only 30 Overall Quality. Is this a good resource or a bad resource? It depends on what the person is buying it for. I'm not sure if these huge variations in statistics help olr hurt the economy. I would like to see lower prices on crappy materials when bought in bulk (grinding) and higher prices on excellant materials when sold in small quantities. As it stands right now there is a basic 3 cpu on every material across the board (at least on my server it seems that way).
Droid_Engineer_Rho
Tue Jan 27, 2004 7:57 am
#8
ROFL -- Pistol, you have no idea what resources are worth, do you? Not everything is worth harvesting, not everything spawns regularly.
On my server we went from August until three weeks ago without seeing two CRITICAL resources for high end droid modules. What do you think those resources are worth?
On my server we went from August until three weeks ago without seeing two CRITICAL resources for high end droid modules. What do you think those resources are worth?
Velisimner
Tue Jan 27, 2004 4:52 pm
#9
ROFL - it would also seem Pistol has no business sense.
"Everything starts with the surveyors. Armorsmiths, weaponsmiths, etc, usually end up making things and selling them for maybe 10% - 20% over cost."
by selling for more than what i got it for i make these sexy little thing called profit! with this profit i can afford to do other things with my business, buy new things for myself.
everythign should start with surveyors, we are teh ones that bring forth the means to create something, granted there are Architects that pull up their own resources but i'll bet ya they got some surveying skills to do so. i harvests resources for a living, i sell my goods no matter what the stats for 2 - 3 cr per unit. to me this is a fair deal and to others it is aswell. hmm maybe thats why i dont have any resources left? cause people keep buying them.
anyways that my 2 credits per unit
Surefoot-SOK
Tue Jan 27, 2004 5:24 pm
#10
Pistol wrote:
I should go into the resource business and undercut everyone.
Hahaha! Go for it! I doub't you'll be doing it for long. You'll soon figure out that we're not talking about credits going into harvesters. We're taking about the real life time it takes to wait for something good to spawn, then survey what looks like a good spot attempt to plant harvesters. Sometimes you get lucky and get it all done in less than an hour. Other times you'll spend all night searching for a good spot.
So if you want to sell out in a day, which you'll do when you undercut everyone, it'll change nothing. You'll be a flash in the pan, a supplier with no supply and soon forgotten. Everyone else who's been doing it for awhile will continue to sell at the market price.
Time = money. If you want to sell your time short and have no supply to meet a constant demand, feel free. Let us know where your vendor is.
progman63
Wed Jan 28, 2004 5:46 am
#11
CPU should be based off maint/power cost to pull them, OR the going sale rate for those resources.
This isn't anything the devs have instituted, this is what the players have developed.
Because there aren't many other criteria to base prices on in this imaginary 'free' market.
You see prices for most all items in the game ranging all over the place from base resource cost to some rediculous prices people think players will pay for something.
Item utility comes into play sometimes, but these are usually the extremely high priced items, or the moderate, 'reasonably' priced items.
The problem is that you have 300,000 people setting their own prices, and there's no guide of any kind telling us what anything 'should' go for.
In RL, you can open the daily newspaper and see that a new 2004Ford Focus automobile goes for about $11,000 and a comparable 2004 Pontiac Sunfire goes for about the same. So if you want to sell a new or used auto of this type, you have something to base your price on, including BlueBook value.
But in this game, there are no guides, no newspapers, no manufacturer ads.
You can compare prices to everyone else on your planet, or your server, but the prices for a 2004 Ford Focus could range anywhere from $5K to $25K depending on crafter value, player value, ignorance, greed, and several other factors.
There IS no guide that shows everyone what the value of an item is. So you have such large differences in price, it's hard to price your own items.
It's crazy.
progman63
Wed Jan 28, 2004 6:05 am
#12
Pistol wrote:
"prices they are simply controlled by the surveyors."
I think that's the problem. Everything starts with the surveyors. Armorsmiths, weaponsmiths, etc, usually end up making things and selling them for maybe 10% - 20% over cost. When the resources to make something cost 100,000 its no wonder that descent armor and weapons cost so much.
Riiiiiiight.......
It's all those dirty surveyors - their all the richest people in the game.
Armorsmiths and weapnsmiths?
The're JUST getting by trying to sell reasonably price items to honest players.
HAWHAW!
10% - 20% over cost, eh?
Try 100% - 200% over cost.
No!
Try 1000% - 2000% over cost.
I'm not slammingthem.
It's whatcombat-freaks willpay for it.
THAT'S the economy - what people will pay for something!
Let me get my Economics 101 textbook out.
Yep, that's what it says - right there in black and white, what people will pay for something.
People that are smarter than most of us trying to tell us how an economy is supposed to work......
Well, I GUESS they don't know what they're TALKING about, cause I KNOWwe're smarter than some geek writing college level textbooks.....
(sorry, this is aimed at a few particular people, not everyone, and not you Pistol)
GAH!
NomOrion
Wed Jan 28, 2004 6:23 am
#13
ikolian wrote:
You have to have a profit margin. As far as cost of production, here's an calculation:
Energy
Say you're using a BER 9 wind on an 50% spot (resonable). They cost 1440 to run a day and produce 6480 resources.
Mineral
Using a BER 4 personal harv: 720 creds a day, 600 power for a total cost of 854 per day (rounded) producing 4608 resources.
comes out to .1853 cpu to produce. Factor in overhead (redeeding or replacing the harvestor)
of 3000 every 5 days or so (resource shifts) and the cost is about .3155 cpu.
so, selling at 2 cpu I make 32256 resources with every personal harvestor for a cost of 10178, netting me a net profit of 54334. You're going to spend at least 3 hours total surveying, operating, and moving that harvestor, so you're making 18K an hour (favorable scenario). Now, tell me how much money a combat class can pull down in a similar amount of time. The resource miners really aren't making a killing compared to their combat counterparts. I see no need to change the resource economy as it stands now.
/tiphat
Well done Sir. I could not have said it better.
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