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Unread 26 Oct 2006, 12:53   #1
Phrazer
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Trade possibilities?

As I see it PA is a game about Planets in space, pretty basic really yes? Now these planets war with each other and politics are discussed in forums and on IRC etc but I feel there is one area of existence that has been left out, and that is trade.

Now this is meant as a general idea and even though I will be using some exact numbers, please do not take these as fixed, just numbers for me to use to demonstrate my idea.

A planet would be able to produce ships – same as now, BUT they would also be able to sell these ships to other planets.

Example: Planet A builds 10 Harpies at a cost of 2400 metal (ill just use one resource for simplicities sake) He then puts them into a “For sale” Fleet like slot (which obviously cant move)

His ships would then show up on a Trade screen, probably best that this is anonymous, just with a number or something with the type of ship, quantity and lastly asking price. The asking price would be whatever the seller is asking of course, but it would have to be at lease 110% of what he paid for the ships in the first place. Probably best to do it in 10% steps or something like that. I don’t see the need to put a upper cap on this?

Anyway, Planet B sees Planet A’s Harpies for sale for, lets say 120% of the original price so 2400 x 120% = 2880, makes an offer, its accepted by planet A and Ching! The deal is done. Give the ships say an 10 tick transfer time (or whatever) so this cant be used for defence (in the same way the alliance fund is used) and there you go, 10 nice new Harpies.

Now I know this is only a very lose description, I think you would have to have a value cap of bought/built ships in your fleet, I was thinking of about 20% of your ships could be bought. Any race could buy any other races ships although not sure what this would mean for the Zik race though although I think it would still work out as they could steal the 10 Harpies and then put them up for sale? But that might make them a bit strong, have to think about that one, so maybe they cant sell other races ships or something. Or do without Zik /me hides

Anyway, what do you think? I admit there are flaws/abuse possibilities but with some common sense in setting it up I don’t see why not.

Discuss, amend or ignore at your leisure, might give the game a bit of a new dimension?
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Unread 26 Oct 2006, 18:17   #2
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Re: Trade possibilities?

Ship trading would add an entirely new dimension to the gameplay. Currently PA is just an combat game; once you start adding elements such as trading, things become more complex.

You would get people who sign up just to be shops and make resources that way, instead of roiding. This changes the economy of the universe as roids would no longer be the only real source of income.

You could expand it further and give additional ways for people to interact with other players. Perhaps, providing services such as scanning or covert ops in return for resources. Or new elements such as mercenary escorts, or having players who can loan jumpgates, reducing travel time in exchange for cash.

Who knows, maybe even PDS would have a place in such a universe

But at the end of the day, the simplicity of PA is what makes it so great, once you start adding 'businesses' instead of just millitary, it becomes more like an MMORPG than a combat strategy game. Is this really what we want?
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Unread 28 Oct 2006, 13:28   #3
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Re: Trade possibilities?

Hmm this idea sounds intriguing.

I remember a game called dune where you could ever so often have a chance to order some special ships.
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Unread 28 Oct 2006, 13:34   #4
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Re: Trade possibilities?

I'm in favour of the principle of trade as a game feature. Trading ships is one possibility, but I think the game needs more different kinds of goods for trading to be a really useful feature.
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Unread 28 Oct 2006, 13:43   #5
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Re: Trade possibilities?

Quote:
Originally Posted by ComradeRob
I'm in favour of the principle of trade as a game feature. Trading ships is one possibility, but I think the game needs more different kinds of goods for trading to be a really useful feature.
We could also trade asteroids (I think that was suggested on a different thread) and maybe even constructions / researches?
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Unread 28 Oct 2006, 15:38   #6
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Re: Trade possibilities?

I think trading/trade routes are a good idea....but trading ships, not so much.

Perhaps some kind of generic trade route, where nothing is traded per say, but that gives you an increased Engineering bonus in certain areas, along with some score/xp.
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Unread 2 Nov 2006, 14:58   #7
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Re: Trade possibilities?

I saw it as a way to say, suppliment a Xan FI fleet with harpies without the need to be a sneaky Zik, or to stick a few xan DE in a Terran De fleet to spice it up a bit? I thought it would add a delicious randomness to a battle. Also it would have plus sides for defence: A race short on anti-somthing could buy in support from a different race.

However thinking about it unless Zik was overhauled then they would be at a bit advantage as they would probably go for Cat ships to negate the init disadvantage
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Unread 2 Nov 2006, 18:21   #8
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Re: Trade possibilities?

trading ships would have to have stringent rules to avoid abuse such as not allowing planets to sign up just to trade ships but i have to be honest and say i like the idea
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Unread 3 Nov 2006, 16:28   #9
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Re: Trade possibilities?

Quote:
Originally Posted by gzambo
trading ships would have to have stringent rules to avoid abuse such as not allowing planets to sign up just to trade ships but i have to be honest and say i like the idea
What exactly would be wrong with a planet just trading ships?
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Unread 4 Nov 2006, 09:08   #10
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Re: Trade possibilities?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Heartless
What exactly would be wrong with a planet just trading ships?
The problem with using a market based system where there is the possibility (or as your suggestion proposed, forced) percuniary gain is that obviously the seller 'gains' resources. Now, whenever gains are made in this game, there is potential for abuse to happen. Sadly, i'm generally not smart enough to work it out, however i'm not naive enough to recognise that others arent either. So i worry about that.

Further, from a pure ship-stat perspective, there is the problem of players acquiring the "perfect" fleet, whereby through trading they gain ships that otherwise (without stealers) they shouldnt, and thus potentially overpower their fleet combo or artifically improve their ability to defend themselves. A bad example: remember R13 Ziks who were very vulnerable to massed Xan FI, untill they stole TBT whereby they then became too hard to kill? Imagine if this type of deliberate weakness was able to be removed through the (relatively easy) method of trading ships; its hard enough to find balance with the ship stats as they are now, introduce this sort of thing and working out the potential interactions with a huge array of potential ships in each combo doing different things to varying degree with alternative prices, and balance suddenly becomes pretty useless.

Mind you, this is generally the argument i use against Appoco's ideal of having branching tech trees to make more than one fleet become available, but i still think the implications exist with this. Perhaps even more so, because all that you are surrendering isnt just a Covert Ops branch that you wouldnt use anyway, but just ships that you've grown out of or whatever.

Also, such a trading planet wouldnt actually be gaining much XP unless they started attacking, so that would make it far more difficult for them to win too.
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Unread 4 Nov 2006, 11:05   #11
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Re: Trade possibilities?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ultimate Newbie
The problem with using a market based system where there is the possibility (or as your suggestion proposed, forced) percuniary gain is that obviously the seller 'gains' resources. Now, whenever gains are made in this game, there is potential for abuse to happen. Sadly, i'm generally not smart enough to work it out, however i'm not naive enough to recognise that others arent either. So i worry about that.

Further, from a pure ship-stat perspective, there is the problem of players acquiring the "perfect" fleet, whereby through trading they gain ships that otherwise (without stealers) they shouldnt, and thus potentially overpower their fleet combo or artifically improve their ability to defend themselves. A bad example: remember R13 Ziks who were very vulnerable to massed Xan FI, untill they stole TBT whereby they then became too hard to kill? Imagine if this type of deliberate weakness was able to be removed through the (relatively easy) method of trading ships; its hard enough to find balance with the ship stats as they are now, introduce this sort of thing and working out the potential interactions with a huge array of potential ships in each combo doing different things to varying degree with alternative prices, and balance suddenly becomes pretty useless.

Mind you, this is generally the argument i use against Appoco's ideal of having branching tech trees to make more than one fleet become available, but i still think the implications exist with this. Perhaps even more so, because all that you are surrendering isnt just a Covert Ops branch that you wouldnt use anyway, but just ships that you've grown out of or whatever.

Also, such a trading planet wouldnt actually be gaining much XP unless they started attacking, so that would make it far more difficult for them to win too.
So, just to clearify if I understood you correctly: basically what you aim for is a game where nobody can gain more than anyone else, i.e. a 1200 hour long stagnation?
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Unread 5 Nov 2006, 04:27   #12
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Re: Trade possibilities?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Heartless
So, just to clearify if I understood you correctly: basically what you aim for is a game where nobody can gain more than anyone else, i.e. a 1200 hour long stagnation?
Basically, if i understand you, then you're a moron.

Edit: in an effort to make this post more useful, if you actually read what i said then i brought up three points; What mechanisms are in place to prevent/deter/minimise 'abuse' and are they sufficient? Are balance effects of this proposal on the ship stats are considered? and what role should XP play in ship trading?
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Unread 5 Nov 2006, 06:46   #13
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Re: Trade possibilities?

Ship trading could be done in bidding format where people put ships up for trade and then the highest bidder gets them. Allow users to set the minimum price and the time frame. Have a default of 120% of cost to build as the price unless the user enters a higher or lower amount.

Would this work in a real round? Unlikely, but it could be a blast in a speedgame.
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Unread 5 Nov 2006, 23:24   #14
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Re: Trade possibilities?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ultimate Newbie
Basically, if i understand you, then you're a moron.

Edit: in an effort to make this post more useful, if you actually read what i said then i brought up three points; What mechanisms are in place to prevent/deter/minimise 'abuse' and are they sufficient? Are balance effects of this proposal on the ship stats are considered? and what role should XP play in ship trading?
It's the nature of war and capitalism to exploit someone or something to gain more than the rest. If we offer a trade system - which may well be exploited like the war system is - we just open up another path to success.

The problem with uncontrollable fleet compositions could - as you pointed out correctly - simply be solved by removing races and shipstats as they currently exist and replace them with ships which get created / upgraded by different, probably exclusive researches and races which gain different boni - for instance xan get +15% firepower on their ships but -15% armour (take a look at Master of Orion 2 for instance, the race designer there: you get basepoints and select different benefits/disadvantages you want to have).

Also, the trade market will regulate itself by having very good but also very expensive ships. Additionally, covert ops could find a better integration into the game as well since you could sabotage ship deliveries and stuff.

Obviously we've just started considering a decent game play system here, but I am fairly certain that it would open up a whole new dimension of gaming experience.
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Unread 11 Nov 2006, 15:11   #15
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Re: Trade possibilities?

If the idea of trading ships in-gal is too much of a problem to grasp, then might I suggest scrapping ships that are no longer required? Such as, if you have a specific fleet make up that you use i.e CR fleet, and have an abundance of say CO ships that you rarely -if ever - use, you could sell them back to the ingame "ship builders guild" for a decent percentage, or add an entirely new construction option "scrapyard" to allow for the disposal of unwanted ships, for a refundable price. With additional research possibilities, the percentage could be improved to 100% say, and even allow for the creation of a special class of ship, that is capable of hitting two or three classes of ship at once.
Unlike the beta tested genocidal ship that hit all classes, it could have a relatively high init, low-ish armour and whatnot to allow for a more equal chance in battle.
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Unread 11 Nov 2006, 19:33   #16
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Re: Trade possibilities?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Travler
Allow users to set the minimum price and the time frame. Have a default of 120% of cost to build as the price unless the user enters a higher or lower amount.
Now that really would be setting this feature up for abuse, for quite obvious reasons.
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Unread 11 Nov 2006, 21:45   #17
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Re: Trade possibilities?

This idea will make strong planets MUCH stronger.

Every round we have some top planets stacking up SHITLOADS of resources and those resources can often change the outcome of a battle because the planet simply builds whatever it needs. Most attacks are recalled when they see that the planet spent its (let's be sex-neutral here) resources.

Now imagine this: The planet under attack spends its huge stack of resources a few moments before tick (at eta 1) on already built ships, disallowing the attackers to notice it. It ends in a bloodbath for the attackers and if the target is a zik, it's now a happy planet.

Could always avoid that by giving the newly built ships an ETA of 2-3 ticks, but then the idea would (imo) be pretty useless.
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Unread 12 Nov 2006, 11:37   #18
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Re: Trade possibilities?

I think its a fun idea if a bit dangerous to exploit. But with a 10 hour delay it sounds doable and i definitely like the sound of it. :-)
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Unread 12 Nov 2006, 12:10   #19
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Re: Trade possibilities?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ultimate Newbie
The problem with using a market based system where there is the possibility (or as your suggestion proposed, forced) percuniary gain is that obviously the seller 'gains' resources. Now, whenever gains are made in this game, there is potential for abuse to happen. Sadly, i'm generally not smart enough to work it out, however i'm not naive enough to recognise that others arent either. So i worry about that.
I think this is the paragraph that Heartless objected to. Particularly whenever gains are made in this game, there is potential for abuse to happen. The most relevant dictionary definition of 'abuse' is 'To use wrongly or improperly', but it's emphatically not clear how this would be possible. Your definition of 'abuse' would have to be 'gain an advantage over others through use of an in-game feature' for your statement to be true, and, if you'll pardon my French, that's slightly ****ed up. Genuine abuse would be, for example, a Zik farming ships from a willing donor; trading, by definition, involves exchange rather than donation.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ultimate Newbie
Further, from a pure ship-stat perspective, there is the problem of players acquiring the "perfect" fleet, whereby through trading they gain ships that otherwise (without stealers) they shouldnt, and thus potentially overpower their fleet combo or artifically improve their ability to defend themselves. A bad example: remember R13 Ziks who were very vulnerable to massed Xan FI, untill they stole TBT whereby they then became too hard to kill? Imagine if this type of deliberate weakness was able to be removed through the (relatively easy) method of trading ships; its hard enough to find balance with the ship stats as they are now, introduce this sort of thing and working out the potential interactions with a huge array of potential ships in each combo doing different things to varying degree with alternative prices, and balance suddenly becomes pretty useless.
Yes, but if the opportunity is open to all, where is the problem? There's certainly no abuse in this scenario; it merely allows for more specialised fleet combinations than are currently possible. Balance is already useless: do you really believe that the wisdom of the stat-makers is so great that they have any idea whether or not their stats are balanced before the round starts? Ship-trading might even mitigate unbalanced stats: useless ships will be sold off or simply not built, in favour of the best possible ships. If everyone has the perfect fleet, then there is perfect balance. The market would pretty efficiently eliminate those ships whose relative weakness unbalances the game.

The real problem with ship trading is that it would work badly with the current ship class and targetting system. With single-class targetting, there's an advantage in composing your fleet with as few ship classes as possible. Having a fleet composed entirely of, say, Destroyers, is a considerable advantage. Ship trading might allow a person to construct an entire fleet composed of a single class, capable of targetting every other class. This would be bad (in my opinion), and would require a change to the targetting system (depressingly, the pre-PAX targetting system would not have suffered from this problem).
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Unread 12 Nov 2006, 17:42   #20
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Re: Trade possibilities?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Travler
Ship trading could be done in bidding format where people put ships up for trade and then the highest bidder gets them. Allow users to set the minimum price and the time frame. Have a default of 120% of cost to build as the price unless the user enters a higher or lower amount.

Would this work in a real round? Unlikely, but it could be a blast in a speedgame.

the problem with that is quite obvious.. those on the top 100 , with obviously the most ressources would buy any and all ships sold.. making them virtually untouchable.. while those who d be 800 or lower would get raided to death...
it would only add to the bashing power of those who are already powerful..

not to mention the trade within gal or alliance mate

exemple.. a terran in exilition sell his basilisk to another exiltion cath member.. that cath member sell him back spider or vipers .. making the two virtually untouchable.. as the weakness disappears...

same apply ingal..

a zik get a load of terran drake.. sell them to cath planet x, he sell back scorpion or mantis.. making the zik weakness out...

obviously.. some flaw would have to be worked out.. but in principle.. the idea is good..
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Unread 12 Nov 2006, 22:00   #21
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Re: Trade possibilities?

Make the bids official then rop1964 and from all who bid it is decided by random factor who gets the ships. Same chances for all then.
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Unread 12 Nov 2006, 22:35   #22
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Re: Trade possibilities?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Lei~
Make the bids official then rop1964 and from all who bid it is decided by random factor who gets the ships. Same chances for all then.
You may as well just scrap the whole trading idea then and randomly distribute new ships to players every tick.

When will people learn that there is no same chances for all in war.
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Unread 12 Nov 2006, 22:42   #23
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Re: Trade possibilities?

Ye i dont really see the point in making it random if im honest

However if everyone was able to buy and sell ships (/me points to the orriginal post about a 20% cap of "bought ships") then surely everyone could benifit making unequalities between race ship stats less important (for better or worse, not the point)
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Unread 13 Nov 2006, 00:16   #24
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Re: Trade possibilities?

Quote:
Originally Posted by zokka
Hmm this idea sounds intriguing.

I remember a game called dune where you could ever so often have a chance to order some special ships.
The starport in Dune 2 (and perhaps Dune) was indeed quite cool !!
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Unread 13 Nov 2006, 02:59   #25
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Re: Trade possibilities?

Quote:
Originally Posted by ComradeRob
'gain an advantage over others through use of an in-game feature' for your statement to be true, and, if you'll pardon my French, that's slightly ****ed up. Genuine abuse would be, for example, a Zik farming ships from a willing donor; trading, by definition, involves exchange rather than donation.
I would put to you that i'm more concerned with players "gaining an unfair or disproportionate advantage over others through unintentional perks of the in-game feature" - mainly, what i'm trying to say is that the system will have to be made unabusable such that there is still an even playing field as practicable. If it was really an exchange, then the price would be at 100%, not 120%; i dont really see why you need to attach a risk premium on ship trading - isnt gaining access to ships that you otherwise wouldnt have benefit enough?

Quote:
Yes, but if the opportunity is open to all, where is the problem?
Fleets with no weakenesses make it difficult to attack as deliberate weaknesses in race's fleets are made useless due to traded ships. I understand what you are saying, i just dont think that they will actually cancel out totally.

Quote:
Balance is already useless: do you really believe that the wisdom of the stat-makers is so great that they have any idea whether or not their stats are balanced before the round starts?
Consider "balance" a continuum; ie, you have different degrees of imbalance; i would say that statmakers have some clue as to make stats less imbalanced that immediately before, but as to whether they actually achieve balance or not is usually not the problem; being close enough generally is enough. Futher, other considerations which are beyond statmaker's control, such as the proportion of races at signup and the like, can play an impact in the effectiveness of stats through the available of certain ships which counter certain other ships. This can be taken into some consideration, but again rarely will it be "balanced".

I do think it is possible to have smaller degrees of imbalance - whether its balance or not isnt really the point.

Quote:
If everyone has the perfect fleet, then there is perfect balance.
I'm not so sure that those two things follow. Who is to say that one perfect fleet is not more powerful in some regards than another perfect fleet?

Quote:
The market would pretty efficiently eliminate those ships whose relative weakness unbalances the game.
Again, i dont think that these follow; effectively what you are saying is that through ship trading, everyone has exactly the same fleet as the market would eliminate any marginal ships (which i dont think it would, btw, only just re-distribute them to other people - remember ships arent created or destroyed in the market); and as such the best thing to do would be to generate a set of ship stats with only one race of ships so as to avoid all this trading crap and just cut right ot the point. Hell, why not just have 1 ship that can be built; then the whole universe will be in balance and only quantity becomes a consideration! Now there's perfect balance!

Quote:
The real problem with ship trading is that it would work badly with the current ship class and targetting system. With single-class targetting, there's an advantage in composing your fleet with as few ship classes as possible.
This is more or less the crux of my problem with the proposal in the area of ship stats; races are meant to have weaknesses; it facilitates easy attacking. Attacking is fun. Fun is good. Reducing some weakness is fine - eliminating it all is bad.

The good news is, statbuilders (rather, at least me) have some stats from the old days that could be quickly and easily modified into a 2 target system which would be the logical next step in improving the combat engine (except for fixing EMP and/or having stealing resistance, ofc), so in that regard it wouldnt take all that long to get something up and running should the combat environment change.

Quote:
Originally Posted by rop1964
exemple.. a terran in exilition sell his basilisk to another exiltion cath member.. that cath member sell him back spider or vipers .. making the two virtually untouchable.. as the weakness disappears...
tbh, it doesnt really matter at all who does the trading. even with 120% for trading ships, these exil members could be trading with omen people and still have the exact same resources and exact same ships; making it a universal market wont change it at all.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Heartless
You may as well just scrap the whole trading idea then and randomly distribute new ships to players every tick.
You're smart enough to know that's not what he is talking about. Clearly, the suggestion meant that there shouldnt really preference between the buyers for the ships. In that case, whomever bids for x number of ships should get them at 120% of the price untill their quota is filled and/or the supply of offered spiders run out. The poster was effectively saying that the price of the ships should be pretty much fixed at around 120% in order for all buyers to be equal as those who have the greater ability to pay are those in the top of the universe, and thus if they are the only ones who can purchase the most beneficial ships then this might be distortionary and "bad". Thus, to see who gets the ships first assuming demand is greater than supply, a random system would be used whereby each buyer has a chance at the supply, the transfer of resources occurs, and the transaction is complete. never, ever, did the poster just say that players should receive free ships every tick - and i think you're just throwing the dummy here because you arent getting exactly what you wanted right away. The point of this discussion is to work out and improve on your idea - an idea that is actually very good - but through silly strawman like this you're undermining your own credibility.
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Unread 13 Nov 2006, 09:53   #26
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Re: Trade possibilities?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ultimate Newbie
If it was really an exchange, then the price would be at 100%, not 120%
Why? Trade occurs when both parties get something which they value more than what they presently have, and value is subjective. I might be willing to sell my Rogues for 80% of what I paid for them, having decided that they're useless. Someone else, who has a more FR-based fleet composition might regard that as a bargain. Both parties get what they want. The sum total of human happiness has been increased

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ultimate Newbie
Fleets with no weakenesses make it difficult to attack as deliberate weaknesses in race's fleets are made useless due to traded ships. I understand what you are saying, i just dont think that they will actually cancel out totally.
It's not possible to build a fleet with no weaknesses though. If nothing else, you will still be vulnerable to people who simply have larger fleets. I'd also assume that, in a universe with ship trading, the stats might be tweaked to favour attacking slightly more, if this inability to attack is perceived as a likely problem.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ultimate Newbie
Consider "balance" a continuum; ie, you have different degrees of imbalance; i would say that statmakers have some clue as to make stats less imbalanced that immediately before, but as to whether they actually achieve balance or not is usually not the problem; being close enough generally is enough. Futher, other considerations which are beyond statmaker's control, such as the proportion of races at signup and the like, can play an impact in the effectiveness of stats through the available of certain ships which counter certain other ships. This can be taken into some consideration, but again rarely will it be "balanced".

I do think it is possible to have smaller degrees of imbalance - whether its balance or not isnt really the point.
Fair enough. My point was really that balance isn't magical perfection, and ship trading would not necessary destroy the perfectly-crafted balance of the ship stat makers.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ultimate Newbie
Again, i dont think that these follow; effectively what you are saying is that through ship trading, everyone has exactly the same fleet as the market would eliminate any marginal ships (which i dont think it would, btw, only just re-distribute them to other people - remember ships arent created or destroyed in the market); and as such the best thing to do would be to generate a set of ship stats with only one race of ships so as to avoid all this trading crap and just cut right ot the point. Hell, why not just have 1 ship that can be built; then the whole universe will be in balance and only quantity becomes a consideration! Now there's perfect balance!
What I said (or at least what I meant) was subtly different from that. Through ship trading, everyone gets the fleet that they want. Since desires are subjective, different people will get different fleets. But they will be able to respond to the universal environment; if a particular ship is too powerful, its best opponent ship will become popular. This reduces imbalance.

I'm not even particularly enamoured of the concept of 'balance', and I'm only pointing out the positive balancing effects of ship trading because you raised balance as an objection to the idea

To be honest, I agree that ship trading is probably a bad idea. I just have different reasons for thinking so, and I enjoy playing devil's advocate
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Unread 13 Nov 2006, 20:31   #27
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Re: Trade possibilities?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ultimate Newbie
You're smart enough to know that's not what he is talking about. Clearly, the suggestion meant that there shouldnt really preference between the buyers for the ships. In that case, whomever bids for x number of ships should get them at 120% of the price untill their quota is filled and/or the supply of offered spiders run out. The poster was effectively saying that the price of the ships should be pretty much fixed at around 120% in order for all buyers to be equal as those who have the greater ability to pay are those in the top of the universe, and thus if they are the only ones who can purchase the most beneficial ships then this might be distortionary and "bad". Thus, to see who gets the ships first assuming demand is greater than supply, a random system would be used whereby each buyer has a chance at the supply, the transfer of resources occurs, and the transaction is complete. never, ever, did the poster just say that players should receive free ships every tick - and i think you're just throwing the dummy here because you arent getting exactly what you wanted right away. The point of this discussion is to work out and improve on your idea - an idea that is actually very good - but through silly strawman like this you're undermining your own credibility.
How am I supposed to know what Lei really means? Mind-reading? Nah, mankind hasn't quite figured out how it works yet.

Anyway, back on the trading issue. Trading ships was just an idea, I can live with it getting scraped (with the current research/ship stat mechanics anyway), but I think it would still enhance the gaming experience if at least resources could be traded with all, and without fees. The "trade with gal fund" and "trade with universe" things are just crippled attempts of offering a trading system.
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Unread 30 Nov 2006, 23:35   #28
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Re: Trade possibilities?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Chufty
Ship trading would add an entirely new dimension to the gameplay. Currently PA is just an combat game; once you start adding elements such as trading, things become more complex.

You would get people who sign up just to be shops and make resources that way, instead of roiding. This changes the economy of the universe as roids would no longer be the only real source of income.

You could expand it further and give additional ways for people to interact with other players. Perhaps, providing services such as scanning or covert ops in return for resources. Or new elements such as mercenary escorts, or having players who can loan jumpgates, reducing travel time in exchange for cash.

Who knows, maybe even PDS would have a place in such a universe

But at the end of the day, the simplicity of PA is what makes it so great, once you start adding 'businesses' instead of just millitary, it becomes more like an MMORPG than a combat strategy game. Is this really what we want?
given pa's ever declining playerbase, possibly

Great idea that defintly deserves more input from better ppl than me
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