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Subcontracting

#1
Hello all,
Update 17 just got another lurker out of the shadows. First of all, please excuse my poor english. This is not my mother tongue.
So, while watching the update I wondered if it was possible to do subcontracting in order to accomplish a mission: instead of going in the asteroid field and chasing startek assets in person, is it possible to post a mission requiring to damage the startek assets and let some npcs do the job for a lesser bounty?
Imagine the following situation: there is a mission to damage Startek assets which is formulated like this: "X money when your log contain <Y Startek asset damaged>", is it possible to post a subcontracting mission not formulated in term of "X' money when log contain < Y Startek asset damaged>" but rather "X' money against I receive your logs <Y Startek asset damaged> instead of you"?
So when the subcontractor damage a Startek asset, he gains X' and the log goes directly to the one who posted the subcontracting mission, who gains X.
I think Josh gave up the notion of data that you loose when you give it to someone but it really make sense in order to treat this kind of situation and it unifies mission and subcontracting mission. In fact, it is not really data that you transfer but rather responsability for a certain action.
For the moment, mission are open until the pool of money dries off so it may not seem of a any interest but this could be the building brick of corporations and emerging hierarchical structure.
I hope I am not totally irrelevant or just late to figure it. But I guess ThymineC will oblingigly link a thread already existing if this is the case.
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Re: Subcontracting

#3
With the way Josh has bound 'proof' of mission completion to 'data' that you can trade in, I would assume it wouldn't be much of a stretch to make this possible. Primarily just requires that when someone turns in that data to you, you have a copy and may do what you like with it.

So really, sub-contracting could almost happen automatically, the real question is just one of whether or not the data recording your actions is reusable for the purposes of reward claiming.

Say I take on two missions, one from faction a and one from faction b, and both request the destruction of a station belonging to faction c. If I destroy that station, Could I use the same data to claim the reward from both? I would expect so, and would expect data to be able to be passed around and claimed as many times as desired, and if that is the case, than those I give it to should be perfectly able to turn around and claim a reward from yet another party, presuming I have not already done so.
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Re: Subcontracting

#4
It is also dependant upon whether the AI know about the higher-up mission (say from the space station) compared to what you're offering. It also depends if what you're offering has enough value too.

If you're sitting next to a Startek cap ship and just start advertising the mission to anyone in the vicinity, they might take it because if they do damage, they can turn in the mission right there instead of having to go back to the station.
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Early Spring - 1055: Well, I made it to Boatmurdered, and my initial impressions can be set forth in three words: What. The. F*ck.
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Re: Subcontracting

#5
DWMagus wrote: If you're sitting next to a Startek cap ship and just start advertising the mission to anyone in the vicinity, they might take it because if they do damage, they can turn in the mission right there instead of having to go back to the station.
That's presuming the mission requires an actual physical proximity based 'turn in', many examples, such as the dev video one of 'do damage' may not require such a thing.
DWMagus wrote:It is also dependant upon whether the AI know about the higher-up mission (say from the space station) compared to what you're offering. It also depends if what you're offering has enough value too.
That's definitely the bigger point, ie: Why would an ai take your offer when they could take the original offer for a better rate?

And the answer there is highly dependent on two things.

1) Information mechanics. Obviously, an ai can't take a mission if they don't know it exists, so it depends on how knowledge of such things is disseminated throughout the universe. If everyone knows of all missions at all times, it won't work. But if mission knowledge is limited by location or internal faction communications, then allowing it to spread via sub-contracting could be pretty cool.

2) Preferential employment. From what we've seen, missions are just open offers. If that is expanded in such a way that missions can be offered selectively, say to friends / faction members / [insert arbitrary parameters here], then that makes this more viable as there should be nothing stopping those people from outsourcing the work, which is also sort of the very nature of hierarchical distribution of work for large projects.
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Re: Subcontracting

#6
Mordakai wrote:
DWMagus wrote: If you're sitting next to a Startek cap ship and just start advertising the mission to anyone in the vicinity, they might take it because if they do damage, they can turn in the mission right there instead of having to go back to the station.
That's presuming the mission requires an actual physical proximity based 'turn in', many examples, such as the dev video one of 'do damage' may not require such a thing.
True. I'm thinking more in terms of long distances of probably multiple systems. While it may be safe to assume that you can turn in some missions within a certain proximity, acting as more of a relay for longer distances may be needed (and could even be used as a basis for some sort of communication infrastructure).

The rest of your post hit the nail on the head perfectly.
Image
Early Spring - 1055: Well, I made it to Boatmurdered, and my initial impressions can be set forth in three words: What. The. F*ck.
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Re: Subcontracting

#7
DWMagus wrote:
True. I'm thinking more in terms of long distances of probably multiple systems. While it may be safe to assume that you can turn in some missions within a certain proximity, acting as more of a relay for longer distances may be needed (and could even be used as a basis for some sort of communication infrastructure).

*silently puts a link down*
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Re: Subcontracting

#8
Cornflakes_91 wrote:Ask the other way around, why should you not be able to subcontract things?
It starts to over complicate things. The AI can just take on the "real" mission themselves for the full pay.

The exception would be for AI that you "own" (the pilots you buy), as they are more of a extension of yourself anyways.
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Re: Subcontracting

#9
Zanteogo wrote:
Cornflakes_91 wrote:Ask the other way around, why should you not be able to subcontract things?
It starts to over complicate things. The AI can just take on the "real" mission themselves for the full pay.

The exception would be for AI that you "own" (the pilots you buy), as they are more of a extension of yourself anyways.

if they dont know the "real" mission?

you take on a job "bring me data logs for destroying startek ships for 200cr/ship"

and then you put up a job "bring me data logs for destroying startek ships for 150cr/ship"

nothing inherently complicated
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Re: Subcontracting

#10
Cornflakes_91 wrote:
if they dont know the "real" mission?

you take on a job "bring me data logs for destroying startek ships for 200cr/ship"

and then you put up a job "bring me data logs for destroying startek ships for 150cr/ship"

nothing inherently complicated
It adds a middle man to a system that works pretty much the same without the middle man. It adds a new "level".
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Re: Subcontracting

#12
Cornflakes_91 wrote:
Zanteogo wrote:
It adds a middle man to a system that works pretty much the same without the middle man. It adds a new "level".
the middle man is completely optional.

the receiving end may doesnt even know that their quest giver is a middle man.
Problem would be that the job markets could get cluttered with thousands of jobs. We would have AI competing with AI's, jobs get subcontracted again and again.

The other reason is personally, I would like to see LT released "sometime". Adding an additional level to an already complex system increases the complexity of getting "everything" working together. If every station had a job market, and every system has 3 or 4 stations (or even 1), and they player knows about say, 30 systems, and the game creates systems say, 5 jumps away from systems the player has seen. That turns into a whole lot of complexity.
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Re: Subcontracting

#13
Zanteogo wrote:
Problem would be that the job markets could get cluttered with thousands of jobs. We would have AI competing with AI's, jobs get subcontracted again and again.

The other reason is personally, I would like to see LT released "sometime". Adding an additional level to an already complex system increases the complexity of getting "everything" working together. If every station had a job market, and every system has 3 or 4 stations (or even 1), and they player knows about say, 30 systems, and the game creates systems say, 5 jumps away from systems the player has seen. That turns into a whole lot of complexity.

i think preventing subcontracting would take more effor than to include it...

as josh would have to artificially prevent the AI's opening up contracts

otherwise they just open up contracts, regardless of their own contract situation.


the markets will already be complex.
and AI's can already open contracts as they like.
so there will be lots of contracts available to fulfil, regardless of subcontracting or not.
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Re: Subcontracting

#14
Cornflakes_91 wrote:
i think preventing subcontracting would take more effor than to include it...

as josh would have to artificially prevent the AI's opening up contracts

otherwise they just open up contracts, regardless of their own contract situation.


the markets will already be complex.
and AI's can already open contracts as they like.
so there will be lots of contracts available to fulfil, regardless of subcontracting or not.
The AI can still open any contract they like with or without subcontracting.

However, with subcontracting they would have a NEW reason to open a contract. They can "1 up" the original being who opened it. Then the next AI can "1 up" him and offer it at a slightly less rate and the dance continues until the base bottom price is all that is left.

If subcontracting was not in the game, the AI would only have a reason to post contracts that benefit themselves directly.

I don't understand how not allowing subcontracting would take more effort, by creating subcontracting you are creating a new "need". If the need never exists in the first place there is no effort needed to create it or to make it work.
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Re: Subcontracting

#15
i think a generalised system that specifically allows subcontracting could make faction management easier.

for example your factory needs repairs.
for this repairs you need resources at the station and a repair ship.

so the factory manager sets up a general request (in your faction) for getting resources and repairing it.
this contract has an "order number", which clearly identifies the request.

your sub-faction which is usually responsible for repairs is at max capacity, so he hires out a subcontractor which gets the order
"get some resources, repair the station and say it was in fulfillment of order nr123453245"

the subcontractor does neither have resources nor means of transporting them, but he has the repair ship.
so he sets up an order "get some resources, deliver them there and say its for order nr123453245"

so now a transport arrives at the station, delivers some resources and tells "this is for order nr123453245", and the station knows that this is for repairing itself and handles the resources approbiately.

some time later the repair ship comes by and says "im here to fulfil order nr123453245".
the station handles him the already delivered resources to the station , the ship does it job and flies away.

now the station knows order nr123453245 is done and starts paying the sub-faction which in turn pays the repair ship captain who pays the resource deliverer.

easily streamlined process with many degrees of freedom



Zanteogo wrote: The AI can still open any contract they like with or without subcontracting.

However, with subcontracting they would have a NEW reason to open a contract. They can "1 up" the original being who opened it. Then the next AI can "1 up" him and offer it at a slightly less rate and the dance continues until the base bottom price is all that is left.

If subcontracting was not in the game, the AI would only have a reason to post contracts that benefit themselves directly.

I don't understand how not allowing subcontracting would take more effort, by creating subcontracting you are creating a new "need". If the need never exists in the first place there is no effort needed to create it or to make it work.
the way the AI works you'd need special conditions to prevent subcontracting.


the way the AI does jobs:

gets new job "bring me 20 datalogs showing the logging ship destroying startek ships"

ai thinks: "i need 20 datalogs"
"how can i obtain them?"
  1. put up a contract asking for datalogs
  2. destroy ships
  3. other ways the AI might can think of
now it does a cost/benefit analysis on the ways and chooses the one with the biggest utility value.

maybe it goes of shooting startek ships.

maybe it opens up another contract.

but there isnt another reason to open up a contract

the only reason is "i want 20 datalogs".
from where this reason comes is completely irrelevant for the AI.

so for preventing subcontracting you'd need to differentiate not only on the reason, but also on the source of the reason.
which is extra complexity

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