Traidir
Hedion University
Amarr Empire
7
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Posted - 2012.01.29 23:48:00 -
[1] - Quote
A long time ago, I use to trade NPC commodities across and within high and low sec. The trade system had a few problems, especially in regard to the price reset mechanic, and the profit margin was abysmally low considering the risk, especially by today's standards.
What I propose is to setup a new dynamic economy of NPC goods, and, with it, a cluster of new modules that enable ships to handle these cargoes.
These special cargoes would be comprised of "perishable commodities" which would carry with them both increased risk and reward. Their associated modules, then, would dynamically compete with cargo expanders and other modules used in trading (like shield expanders) to improve the longevity of the cargo. Each cargo would be available in only one part of space and in high demand elsewhere, encouraging traders to travel far and fast (especially if the the demand scales dynamically, with higher and higher payouts for increasingly long periods without a successful trade run).
Different cargoes would be handled differently, but several dynamics can be set up. For example, suppose there is an exotic, ceremonial Amarrian fruit that only grows on one planet and is believed to "purify" those who consume it before it changes color (normally within 2 hours of it being picked), after which the whole batch is ruined. Ships then, that can go farther and faster will see drastically higher profits per unit, though such ships typically will (and do) have significantly smaller cargo holds and higher skill requirements. Though it is possible for this fruit to stay good for quite some time on its own, use of special refrigeration or environmental control units in your low slots can preserve its value for a limited period (with multiple units giving diminishing returns, if any at all).
Meanwhile, Radioactive Byproducts (for, say, medical use; like barium) will have a half-life, thus as the material sits in your cargo bay it is constantly devaluing (and, perhaps, even getting smaller). Thus, faster pilots are rewarded by being able to sell more of their load before it decays. Materials with a short half-life also tend to put out a lot of heat and radiation though, so low slots are needed to augment the internal hulls to dissipate heat and shield the ship's systems from damage and interference. A dynamic may even be made where unshielded or poorly shielded ships slowly lose structure/armor/shields and have modules overheat as they fly, but are able to carry greater amounts (which of course worsens the radiation problem). Perhaps these ships would even require active hull repair mods in order to keep from exploding on the fly.
Another possibility is wildcard type commodities. A viral agent may require a CPU intensive mid slot to monitor and adapt to changes in the virus, which simply has a random chance of mutating and becoming suddenly worthless (with the module reducing the chance along a Poisson distribution).
Many other possibilities exist for this type of trade: Emergency medical transport, that requires a triage bay to keep the patient alive and requires that the ship not be shaken (i.e. shot at) or the patient may die (perhaps he even has hit points). Livestock requiring environmental controls or sedation. Unstable material, which might explode if the ship is exposed to certain types of radiation (possibly preventing the ship from safely entering systems with highly energetic blue stars unless their EM resistance on shield or armor is above some ridiculous threshold like 95-97%). And many more such scenarios which encourage people to play with their ship fittings or deal with threats from other players.
All the while this system will encourage people to move though dangerous areas of low and null sec . This will make pirates happy as people move through their space in an attempt to claim the reward, while simultaneously folks are encouraged to leave secure space and pass through all areas of the galaxy with NPC stations (and perhaps even outposts?).
It would even encourage people to explore wormholes which can act as extremely profitable shortcuts. Generally speaking this would encourage people to touch, examine, and interact with every aspect of the game. A win, win. |