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Availability and diversity

#1
In the fake economy of the prototype we have seen there is a lot of stuff to choose between, different weapons and shields.

Something strikes me as kindof odd though, there are very few of each item, only one in some cases.
Why would any factory make so many models? Why isnt there a few of each kind and houndreds in stock?
The answer of course is that the shop is fake, but there is still something to be learnt.

In a real economy most things come in huge numbers and ( relatively ) few makes. I think some products should be local to one system ( or star cluster) and be in huge suply there with some items imported from other far away places.

You still need some variation in products produced of course, but 15 kinds of weapon ( produced in large quantity, and not counting imported products or products made by smaller producers without huge factories) is sufficient in one system. An added bonus here is that some items are more or less permanently in stock in some systems, now we can go on pilgrimages to those stations with the awesome guns lategame.



This is just my thoghts on one little(ish) thing, it might not count towards anything particularly great...
Sorry if my english is bad too, my fingers cant handle touch keyboards and it's late.
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Re: Availability and diversity

#4
I completely agree with this. A different region or maybe even a different faction should have there own unique take on a specific weapon or equipment. Different bonuses unique to the faction it was manufactured by. Like in eve where you would have special caldari and gallente specific rail guns and ammo. This would allow more of a diversity in a market. Some people might want this factions laser over this factions laser. creating this competition to research and manufacture a better weapon. Or simply try to wipe out that faction producing that weapon. That could also make the weapons even more unique if that faction were to die out. You would never see another weapon like it again!
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Re: Availability and diversity

#5
You might want a gun with a bit more oomph. You might want one that can take the particular calibre of missile you like. You might want one that's cheaper.

You might like that manufacturer. You might be looking for a change.

They might not make that model any more but collectors and specialists still want them. They might have run out of the materials used for something and switched. You might be the only person who bought that gun ever so they stopped making it.

Lots and lots of reasons for a big, diverse market. And the bigger and more diverse the market is, the better the game will be.
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Re: Availability and diversity

#6
I'm in favour of markets with a large and diverse range of goods on offer, some of which may be very similar to others. If LT goes with my infinite-variety crafting idea (and vanilla almost certainly won't, but say it did), then every blueprint you develop (which may be one out of an infinite or near infinite set) could be used to produce goods that could be marketed as their own particular model. This would cause markets to explode over time with different models, whose names could be procedurally generated based on those of similar blueprints that the manufacturer has developed (to quantitatively measure "similarity" between two blueprints, you just take the Euclidean/Manhattan/Chebyshev/whatever-distance between the components of the vectors representing their associated attributes e.g. for a weapon: dps, range, tracking rate, etc.).
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Re: Availability and diversity

#7
ThymineC wrote:I'm in favour of markets with a large and diverse range of goods on offer, some of which may be very similar to others. If LT goes with my infinite-variety crafting idea (and vanilla almost certainly won't, but say it did), then every blueprint you develop (which may be one out of an infinite or near infinite set) could be used to produce goods that could be marketed as their own particular model. This would cause markets to explode over time with different models, whose names could be procedurally generated based on those of similar blueprints that the manufacturer has developed (to quantitatively measure "similarity" between two blueprints, you just take the Euclidean/Manhattan/Chebyshev/whatever-distance between the components of the vectors representing their associated attributes e.g. for a weapon: dps, range, tracking rate, etc.).
you can make as many blueprints as you like, but why should there be infinite diversity of weapons in a single system? why would you ever go anywhere else to find weapons. you could just sit and wait until it was in some station. also trading weapons in large quantities becomes hard to manage as you only get two or thee of each wepon and you need a few houndred for one run.
it just doesent feel right, we want an infinite universe, not nessecarily an infinite system, or infinite diversity in each system. that would quickly get dull and each system would feel samey.
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Re: Availability and diversity

#8
ravener96 wrote:you can make as many blueprints as you like, but why should there be infinite diversity of weapons in a single system? why would you ever go anywhere else to find weapons. you could just sit and wait until it was in some station. also trading weapons in large quantities becomes hard to manage as you only get two or thee of each wepon and you need a few houndred for one run.
Just because there can be an infinite diversity of weapons doesn't mean in practice there will be. R&D takes time, so at most any one corporation, system or region will only provide items that constitute a tiny subset of all the possible varieties.
ravener96 wrote:it just doesent feel right, we want an infinite universe, not nessecarily an infinite system, or infinite diversity in each system. that would quickly get dull and each system would feel samey.
Well, no. If there's an infinite or near infinite possible variety of weapons, ships, etc. but each manufacturer in different systems produce only a limited subset of this variety, then you'd have get an enormous amount of diversity and variety between systems, giving different systems and different corporations different feels to one another. This is especially the case when you consider that corporations will naturally try to differentiate their products from those of their competitors in the market in order to have a unique selling proposition - within the weapons market of a system, for instance, you'd very likely see this give rise to that system's own Dahl, Hyperion, Jakobs, Maliwan, etc.
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Re: Availability and diversity

#9
one more note on this is that infinite diversity with limited suply (an ai only bothers to make a few of each make before getting bored and goes mining) makes it hard to make standardized ship loadouts, it is hard to track down 45 beamers for your fighter wing if you only can get 10 decent ones and they are all different. sometimes i want standardized equipment without having to make it all myself.

allyway, i guess josh could make blueprints expensive enough that npc's only wish to get a few different ones before it gets unprofitable. they should also be able to distibute a design so some models become common.
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Re: Availability and diversity

#10
Hardenberg wrote:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_firearms

Knock yourself out. All of those chemically accelerate a chunk of heavy metal. Most are available on the market, subject to restrictions and regulations. They are all manufactured on one planet.
there are more than 4 m4's in the world, if you like your ak you can get another one. the problem in the prototype is that every weapon is more or less one of a kind.

also, every one of those weapons have a nationality ascosiated with them. it is easier to get a tavor in israel than in russia for example and i am guessing that you are hard pressed to find a g36 on the market in somalia.
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Re: Availability and diversity

#11
This actually ties into a question I've been mulling over for a while now. How many unique types of item will there be? Will there be just one "laser" weapon with varying damage/accuracy/range depending on the individual model, or will there be a dozen each with unique abilities and drawbacks? Everything I've seen regarding research is bonuses and penalties to existing stats, without accumulation of truly new technologies along the way.
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Re: Availability and diversity

#12
Periapsis wrote:This actually ties into a question I've been mulling over for a while now. How many unique types of item will there be? Will there be just one "laser" weapon with varying damage/accuracy/range depending on the individual model, or will there be a dozen each with unique abilities and drawbacks? Everything I've seen regarding research is bonuses and penalties to existing stats, without accumulation of truly new technologies along the way.
Thats a problem i have too with weapon generation (as far as my informations go)
I once made a long an detailed post about weapon balance

link to the post
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Re: Availability and diversity

#13
ravener96 wrote:one more note on this is that infinite diversity with limited suply (an ai only bothers to make a few of each make before getting bored and goes mining) makes it hard to make standardized ship loadouts, it is hard to track down 45 beamers for your fighter wing if you only can get 10 decent ones and they are all different. sometimes i want standardized equipment without having to make it all myself.

allyway, i guess josh could make blueprints expensive enough that npc's only wish to get a few different ones before it gets unprofitable. they should also be able to distibute a design so some models become common.
I'm not sure why you're making the assumption that agents "only make a few of each before getting bored". That's not how it would work at all within a properly functioning economy - corporations would invest into R&D and initially develop one or a few blueprints (out of the near infinite variety possible) for products they can sell on the market. These corporations would then start making identical mass-produced products based on these blueprints using flow or batch-production techniques. They'd do this until these products saturated the market and they acquired enough profit to re-invest into R&D and develop new blueprints, based on feedback from the market about consumer preferences. Again, they'd start producing these new goods until they'd saturated the market with them. It should be exceedingly easy to find standardised equipment this way.

Of course, you may still have smaller corporations that use job production techniques to make non-standard products tailored to each individual consumer's preference, but that doesn't affect the above argument - most of the products on the market will be mass-produced and standardised.
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Re: Availability and diversity

#14
ThymineC wrote:
ravener96 wrote:you can make as many blueprints as you like, but why should there be infinite diversity of weapons in a single system? why would you ever go anywhere else to find weapons. you could just sit and wait until it was in some station. also trading weapons in large quantities becomes hard to manage as you only get two or thee of each wepon and you need a few houndred for one run.
Just because there can be an infinite diversity of weapons doesn't mean in practice there will be. R&D takes time, so at most any one corporation, system or region will only provide items that constitute a tiny subset of all the possible varieties.
ravener96 wrote:it just doesent feel right, we want an infinite universe, not nessecarily an infinite system, or infinite diversity in each system. that would quickly get dull and each system would feel samey.
Well, no. If there's an infinite or near infinite possible variety of weapons, ships, etc. but each manufacturer in different systems produce only a limited subset of this variety, then you'd have get an enormous amount of diversity and variety between systems, giving different systems and different corporations different feels to one another. This is especially the case when you consider that corporations will naturally try to differentiate their products from those of their competitors in the market in order to have a unique selling proposition - within the weapons market of a system, for instance, you'd very likely see this give rise to that system's own Dahl, Hyperion, Jakobs, Maliwan, etc.
we'll see how josh makes the factions work, as it is now there is a possibility that npc's will flood the market with different makes and models. i'm sure he'll figure it out, but this post is just bringing attention to something to be changed from the prototype.

one thing that would help a lot in making the equipment selection cosistent is if it was easier/cheaper to buy existing blueprints from aleredy big guys so the smaller npc's will make existing products instead of making their own procedurally generated stuff.
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Re: Availability and diversity

#15
ravener96 wrote:we'll see how josh makes the factions work, as it is now there is a possibility that npc's will flood the market with different makes and models. i'm sure he'll figure it out, but this post is just bringing attention to something to be changed from the prototype.
I wouldn't worry about that. I haven't played the prototype but I doubt the final game will be that similar to it, especially on the macro side of things.

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