Skip to content

The Fledgling Economy or How I Learned to Stop Worrying And Love The Spreadsheets

edited December 2018 in Feedback
Hi, Everyone! I have a LOT of important information to share, particularly for the admins!

=Introduction!=

I've been spending the last week since launch doing a lot of research and experimenting and footwork to find out the ins and outs of the economy system in the game. Market orders and offers, Refineries, Autofactories and everything in between that has to do with crafting stuff. Ultimately, I want to get a working supply economy in place that will allow people to refine raw materials at a fair price and a fair profit for refinery owners and then sell said materials to factories for a fair profit for themselves. Then, to allow the factory owners to buy the refined materials and use them to create finished goods and sell THOSE for a fair profit. These are my findings so far.

=Refineries!=

The public refineries on Omni, while well-intentioned I'm sure, have created a massive headache for our early efforts. These refineries are charging extremely high fees for their services in comparison to most people's total bank accounts at the moment, an example being Iriil which is refined for around 100 marks per ton. This amount of a fee results in ballooning the cost to perform every action in the supply chain going forward. One ton of Iriil, if refined for the cost of 100 marks, must be sold to a factory owner at a minimum of 110 marks for any kind of profit by the miner, lest the miner lose money. The factory owner must then carry that cost onto the consumer by raising their price of their finished goods accordingly.

For example, if this Iriil were used to supply one production cycle of HDS Astrium, it would require 120 Iriil (and 16 Astrium) to produce 4 tons of HDS Astrium. This translates to a cost of at least 12,000 marks, valuing the HDS Astrium at 3,000 marks a piece. That one piece of HDS Astrium would then be used along with 32 Elessium to create an EM Battery at a cost of at least 3,000 marks. The problem, is that EM Batteries currently cost 150 marks to buy from the star forges. And herein lies our dilemma.

However, I discovered a solution. A refinery costs 5 marks per ton for the owner to operate it. If they set their fee at 10 marks per ton, it provides the owner with 5 marks of profit per ton, and as refining is a high-volume operation, this translates into a tidy cash-flow over time. The miner can then take their refined material to factories that will buy it at 20 marks per ton, giving the miner a profit of 10 marks per ton, more than the refinery owner, on account of being exposed to the inherent risk of space lane piracy. This also establishes a baseline cost of 20 marks per ton of material when calculating costs for the rest of the supply tree.

-------------------

It is late and I am quite tired, so I will be continuing this tomorrow, as we still have Autofactories and the Market System to go over. Good night everybody!

Comments

  • And I thought astromechs were pricey at 500. Eesh.
  • edited December 2018
    Seems going for ten marks per ton isn't profitable for all refinery owners, either. Game just tried to charge me roughly 6.5k to process 65 tons of Magnaril at my refinery when someone brought a 'roid in. Which means these prices are going to shoot up even higher unless something is tweaked, unfortunately.

    Editted a few times to correct errors. Apologies, it's late and I'm tired.
    Feraluna has called for the honoring of Razzy for the following reason: somehow setting Reynolds on fire, killing someone, and then calling for her own besmirching.
  • edited December 2018
    @Razzy I'd like you to please send me screenshots of the kinds of processing fees you're having to pay. Same with any other refinery owners facing these issues. The more information I have available to work with, the more easily I'll be able to refine my data.
  • edited December 2018
    Screenshots sent. I'll state this publicly too: The processing fee on my end for 95 tons of Magnaril was 6320 marks, which is roughly the same price for 65 tons - I had the same person bring them in and confirm the sizes. While I don't have a screenshot of the first processing attempt, I do remember it being over 6000 marks, so something's wonky in how the fees are calculated, or there's a 6000 mark minimum processing fee for Magnaril, which is exorbitant, to say the least.
    Feraluna has called for the honoring of Razzy for the following reason: somehow setting Reynolds on fire, killing someone, and then calling for her own besmirching.
  • I have some concerns about players being able to set their own prices in general. What's going to stop everyone from exhaustively undercutting one another to stay competitive, to the point where all we're covering is maintenance/taxes and nobody is making any profit?

    I also don't know what the solution to that problem is. Because if the prices become fixed, what then do players base their choice of refinery off? Naturally, you're going to use a refinery that belongs to someone in your own faction, because you know your marks are going to your section of the game. But what about when there are multiple refineries owned by different people in the same faction?
  • Holy crap...where's the entry level options to these gameplay loops?
  • Zil said:
    I have some concerns about players being able to set their own prices in general. What's going to stop everyone from exhaustively undercutting one another to stay competitive, to the point where all we're covering is maintenance/taxes and nobody is making any profit?

    I also don't know what the solution to that problem is. Because if the prices become fixed, what then do players base their choice of refinery off? Naturally, you're going to use a refinery that belongs to someone in your own faction, because you know your marks are going to your section of the game. But what about when there are multiple refineries owned by different people in the same faction?
    The easy answer to this is nothing but the market . IF people undercut each other to the point where no one is making a profit then people will stop producing and go do something else this in turn will mean less competition and the prices should go up to where people are willing to do it for the profit. Prices should not be fixed there is a floor which is enough of a fixed price with maintenace and taxes otherwise you will be losing money and have to grind to make a profit that is why there should be always a little meat left on the bone as grinding for cash is boring as crap
  • Zil's concerns are well founded.  People massively undervalue their time while playing games.
  • edited December 2018
    In theory, multiple refineries would be useful once large amounts of people can gather gas and tether asteroids, since each has a wait time for a set amount of tons processed, ie, 20 tons of Duramine in 160 seconds, or 5 tons of Magnaril in 95 seconds, and so on. The smallest asteroid I've had come in to one of my refineries was 50 tons, so that's a lot of waiting for people bringing them in, though I'm not sure if you have to stick around the station while it's being refined.

    Of course, this assumes that people actually check job queues, or remember to move them.
    Feraluna has called for the honoring of Razzy for the following reason: somehow setting Reynolds on fire, killing someone, and then calling for her own besmirching.
  • griff said:
    The easy answer to this is nothing but the market . IF people undercut each other to the point where no one is making a profit then people will stop producing and go do something else this in turn will mean less competition and the prices should go up to where people are willing to do it for the profit. 
    I can certainly see how this would apply to everything above refineries, as factories require manual operation and time investment. But the income from people using your refinery is passive and doesn't require the owner to actually do anything. As long as you're covering your maintenance and taxes, it's not costing you anything to own one and just let it sit there and be used for cheap as chips. There's no reason to sell it or to 'stop producing.'

    @Razzy makes a very good point about wait times in regards to my concerns about what miners would factor into their choice of refinery! I had forgotten altogether that there's a queue. Hopefully as more people level up their captaincy and give mining a go, this will become relevant.
  • edited December 2018
    As another data point for how badly the numbers need retooling (or if not better communication on how this is supposed to work), there is one order for HDS Astrium from NPCs worth 700 marks.  The quantity is 2, and I don't know whether that's per or total, but either way the autofactory cost alone is 941 per, not to mention the cost of ,obtaining and refining the materials.  Unsure how a profit is supposed to be turned even with intermediate resources.
  • The price the npcs charge is based off the average from the comm market transactions, and since there's not really been a lot of activity there, those averages are at the floor. That's not to say numbers don't need tweaked, they definitely do, but I wouldn't necessarily think that those market orders are as much as you'll possibly ever make off it.
  • That just means that we should -NEVER- post a single one of what the NPCs sell on the market or the price will skyrocket and we'll all be screwed.
Sign In or Register to comment.