Draft: factories and commodities (new crafting/trading mechanic)



  • I really REALLY like the idea of bulk reactions! It seems like an interesting trade off game play wise. Smaller reaction amounts with easier set up plus ability to change as needed vs Large reaction that lock a lab/factory into a resource type until the cooldown is over.

    This offers a CPU savings for players AND it would lessen the intent burden in the processor. One of few cases where what's good for players is also good for the servers.


  • Dev Team

    @xenofix said in Draft: factories and commodities (new crafting/trading mechanic):

    What still bugs me is, that the output is always one item

    I already answered to this in your post above:

    Produce amount is not necessarily equal to 1.

    We're still debating whether it should be adjustable amount or not, but it's definitely not one item per run for most low level items. The table in the first post only shows the needed components for one item, not the reaction itself.



  • Factories, the map dependent resources and production chains all looks really interesting and fun to implement, I just wish there was another use than to sell to NPC terminals for credits. Credits just dont seem that rewarding to me. Perhaps the produced items could be consumed for some bonus effects also instead of only sold to NPC's?

    The map diversity they add also seem pretty minimal, you would just produce whatever chain you are currently located in, not really seeing much incentive to contest any areas if there are no real benefits of one type of the new resources above another.

    I think both points can be improved if the products can be consumed for varying degrees of bonuses, maybe even account based bonuses. Would probably be pretty hard to get the balance right (if each production chain has a unique theme of bonus effects), but you could imagine the Biological chain could be consumed to be an Invader repellent (invasion free SK rooms?), Mechanical chain used to mine minerals faster etc. Just to add another layer of use for the end products to make them rewarding to produce and really have a competitive use.



  • @artch just an afterthought, wouldn't it be much more interesting if the reactions require products from a different category?
    That would for sure boost market activity and makes actual trade routes a interesting thing.


  • Dev Team

    The root post has been updated.

    Added information about producing amount and cooldown for all reactions.

    As usual, we tried to balance it to not have a single best strategy but instead let you try different strategies with own pros and cons each and choose what suits your gameplay style the best.

    If you see something broken/unfair/inconsistent/whatever, please feel free to voice your concerns here.



  • I think having the credits returned on order expiration might make sense. You're basically placing a down payment, but if no one takes the offer you get it back. You can't use those credits till then.

    Otherwise it'll be even more punishing to make orders for lesser traded resources.

    👍


  • Expiring orders that have 0 Remaining should not return any credits. Those orders could also have a shorter expire time since they are filled. Expiring orders that still have some remaining should return a portion of the credit cost but also take longer to expire so that they can possibly be filled.

    I like what I see on the resource compression mechanics. With the cooldown be the same to decompress as it is to compress?


  • Dev Team

    With the cooldown be the same to decompress as it is to compress?

    Yes, and costs the same amount of energy.



  • @davaned the counter-argument would be that getting your money back at expiry means that people don't set competitive prices and the market has wider spreads and is less useful. It's annoying losing money but it's an interesting problem adjust your order prices from time to time in order to minimise loss.



  • Maybe market system changes should be discussed in a separate threat. I'm also not a friend of order fees and I'm more a friend of transaction fees, but it would be too offtopic to deepen this topic now.

    The current changes show what we'll expect but there is still something missing:

    • The regional commodities need different resources, so their production cost varies a lot between different regions. What will be the market prices for these commodities?
    • How much ops will OPERATE_FACTORY need for which effect duration? ( I know proposed is 100 ops for 1000 ticks, but they are "still considering other timings too" )