Any economy geeks?

[THENIRL]

Well, let's say we only use a trading system to get special buffs or items. It doesn't need to rely on currency. A special item or buff can be traded for, let's say, blue science packs and advanced circuits as much as for coin. Trading between players is also possible in the goods-for-goods style (and I'm convinced it's preferable), not having any coin involved.

i was trying to think up a setup where you could happily play without the market without a major disadvantage, OR be able to base your entire economy around trading,

Well, Dakkanor, I don't see why this needs to become an issue. While trading would most likely end up playing a significant role (as I believe it should), especially if there are special buffs and items involved, nothing is stopping us from suggesting a simple "Allow trading" button in the scenario editor. If it's not on, there's no trading, ensuring everyone gets to play the way they like the most. Can't get a better alternative than this one!
If there's trading in a campaign now, that's a different issue for sure. But in this case, if trading is not mandatory, you may prefer to play without taking advantage of it. If it is mandatory, it should be seen as the "Scan 50 sectors" mission: we don't really feel like doing it and it's only there to make the campaign progress, but it has to be done (this, of course, running on the basis that the scenarios wouldn't ALL be completely lacking in certain resources (I, too, see no reason to impose trading - it should be something exploitable, not mandatory).

But, campaign aside (which I think would require an extensive amount of designing and programming), I'm just trying to figure out how feasible an option it would be in a multiplayer scenario for now, where the devs might not need as much work implementing it (again, I do NOT have a clue as to the amount of work and effort it would require to implement something ten times simpler than the stuff we're talking about).

So, so far, general preferences seem to converge on a no-currency trading system. There is also the "cost fluctuation according to supply and demand" sytem vs the "constituent items + build stages = value" system, where higher value means better ratios to trade with the A.I. Come to think of it, if the A.I. can work out the ratios, nothing stops it from forcing it onto players directly trading with each other, e.g., "you need 50 item X to buy 10 item Y from player Z".

Great to be having this discussion!

[Dakkanor]

Great to be having this discussion!

happy to be participating, even if my main idea is not useful to the main game i always try to flesh out my suggestions, this way something from my thinking might be looked at by the devs and be used for something really good. Its also a really good though exercise to think up,not just the idea, but how it could function, how it could change and how it could be used in other ways.

for example, the market buildings with the heavy robots could be a long distance resource depot and act in a similar way to a teleporter which has been suggested in other threads

[MF-]

fair enough, i was trying to think up a setup where you could happily play without the market without a major disadvantage, OR be able to base your entire economy around trading, i.e. you start in a good place with plenty of resources and need no trading market at all. VS being in a limited map and having to trade every unused resource to build further, or even making a basic setup, finding practically no resources later and concentrating entirely on building trade goods which make a decent profit, then running your entire factory from imported goods. i think that an item exchange which runs on a weighted system and bypasses currency would be good, BUT only if its balanced as an alternative play style instead of being required to proceed(or if it is required it wouldn't be a heavy reliance simply shipping in unique material)

on an aside, the system would be useful to remove excessive, unused materials, like the burners for example or useful to trade off something you currently have an excess of (accidentally produced laser turrets but sorely need adv circuits etc)

That sounds good.

Yes, a recycler device would be useful for such purposes

[THENIRL]

Yes, a recycler device would be useful for such purposes

I think Dakkanor meant that trading could be useful to drain excess resources, not necessarily in a recycling device.

[MF-]

I think Dakkanor meant that trading could be useful to drain excess resources, not necessarily in a recycling device.

I am aware of that. 3/4 of the examples given were recycling examples, which reminded me the need for a recycler.

PS: I simply store the excess resources in chests. Then the deposit of the particular resource is exhausted and the excess resource allow me to operate till I find and setup a new site.

[THENIRL]

Hmm, it might be a thing... but one should make sure neither trade takes away from recycling nor the other way around. For instance, trade could have a minute or so trip time (or variable time if done between players, depending on their distance from each other), but have the benefit of eventually being highly profitable (again, not necessarily in coin), while recycling could be instant but not give you back all the base resources you used to produce the recycled items. Maybe a recycler could be upgradable to give you back up to a certain percentage of those resources, allowing the player to quickly scavenge some raw materials to produce something he needs at that time on the fly.

[MF-]

+1 to "upgradeable recycler" idea.
But even recycling should not be instant. It could be rather quick compared to crafting, but not instant IMO.

[THENIRL]

Well, I'll agree, instant is probably not a solid idea, but let's say significantly faster than a trade trip

[ficolas]

this is too gamechanging

[THENIRL]

We're hoping it will be, but what are the negative aspects you think this would have?

[ficolas]

We're hoping it will be, but what are the negative aspects you think this would have?

In my opinion, a game that have alredy been started shouldnt have huge changes, because there may be some people who dont like it, but anyways, I think this change would be cool.

[THENIRL]

Well, this being an admittedly early alpha version, I think it's safe to assume most people are aware that the devs' plan is to work on it constantly, so we gope they'll be expecting it