Thu Mar 06, 2003 4:18 pm by Debris
Cool ideas, Stone-D. While I'm not opposed to new ideas or implementations to the game, I just think that not having them at release doesn't detract from what I'm looking to get from the game.
I didn't intend for my post to become a debate on the merits of a free economy but, since we seem to be having a mature conversation about it, allow me to put forth a few tidbits.
Realistically, I don't think it's feasible for one person to affect a planetary economy by disrupting a trade lane, but I don't want to go into how "real" a sci-fi computer game is or isn't. However, let's say we wanted to make a pseudo-realistic economy in FL, first of all you would have to make each commodity on each station limited in number. The majority of commodities would have to be finite in number to realistically model the concept of supply. As an example, say you wanted to fill your trader with diamonds, would you expect them to have 75 units (tons?) of product every time you went there? There would probably be certain commodities that were infinite in quantity based upon where you purchased them, such as water on an ocean world. Then, to finish off the supply side, you would have to create trade lanes/ routes for every commodity that each station and planet had in stock. This would create the supply of a commodity to a planet. If the shipment didn't make it for some reason, there wouldn't be a re-supply of the commodity at that particular place. Back to our example of the Diamond trader, since he purchased all of the stock a few days ago, there are no more diamonds to be had for trade, at least in this station until the next shipment comes in. If that shipment is hijacked, then diamonds wouldn't get re-supplied until possibly the next shipment. Once again, this is only workable if you make the commodities finite in quantity. It wouldn't work with the bottomless glass of supply that's in FL now.
Prices could then fluctuate based upon supply and demand, although it's still way too shallow and simplified for my tastes. If there is a shortfall of product, basically, prices will go up for every entity in the supply chain, from manufacturer, to wholesaler or distributor, to reseller then to the consumer. So, If diamonds were hard to come buy, the original station the product is made, along with the every other station that needs them will probably go up in price. The longer you want, but can't get a commodity, the more the price will go up. Once again, this price will go up pretty much everywhere.
Let's switch to real world for a minute while we talk about demand and pricing fluctuations.
Pricing would stay inflated and unstable until supply catches up. Also, people tend to panic when they can't get something they need or want, and think that by requesting more than they really need, they'll get at least what they originally want. Typically, what happens is manufacturers see that there's a significant shortage of their product and a very high demand, so they ramp up production to capture all the profits that are to be had. As they start fulfilling their customer's orders, which are inflated, pricing starts to stabilize as supply starts meeting demand. Customers begin realizing that they need to start canceling those inflated orders that they put on the manufacturer. As these orders are cancelled, the manufacturers now have too much product, and they drop prices further in order to move it. Just as pricing went up all along the line of supply, prices will now go down because of the perceived glut. Soon, pricing will be only slightly above costs and profit margins will be much lower than they were in the shortage, until the whole thing runs its course again. I'm keeping this simple and not getting into multiple manufacturers or multiple lines of supply. The last thing I will mention about this is that these market shifts, such as allocations and gluts, usually span several years and are cyclical.
Now, could this or should this be applied to FL? Well, if you want it realistic, and your supply affected by pirates and or the player, then you could do so, as long as commodities are not in infinite supply. However, prices shouldn't be going up or down instantly based upon one or two shipments.
To me, all of this is way too complicated for a sci-fi space game. Maybe it's best to have the economy dumbed down to have a +/-10% random fluctuation, but then we get back to a point in my original post, will it really add so much more play time and depth?
One last thing before I wrap this pile of crap essay up. I do think it would be cool to have planetary emergencies or delivery missions, but not having them won't make me hate or dislike this game.
To me a better trade system would improve the game a lot, and the idea's proposed in this thread would really make trade a bigger aspect of the game. only this: a logically working trade system would have soo much more variables (customer demand, shipments, type of planet, etc etc) thats its going to be very hard to realize. So i have to agree on debris its going to be way to complicated, and a random fluctuating system would have to do (for now 
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