Authors:
Trade should serve to enable the distribution of limited resources between players. Aspects of the game should be resource-dependent in order to encourage cooperation among guild members. Some materials will only be extractable with high-level tech in certain areas.
Agreements / Contracts
Players will have the option of setting up trade directly between each other or negotiating via the trade federation. All currency belongs to the TF and is issued against reserves of trade goods which they stock. When two players agree to trade, they sign a contract that allows their AI commanders to schedule shipments of resources within the time interval specified by the agreement. Each party will ship resources as agreed-upon unless the other party breaks the agreement.
Trading with the trade federation is a bit different - players will dock with a trade federation ship and have the ability to sell resources immediately to the trade federation. The trade federation signs a contract with the player and sends resource collectors to his or her planets. These resource collectors are effectively given the right to steal from the player without tripping planetary defenses.
Shipments
Trade will be implemented via actual shipments between planets. Players will have the option of increasing their shipping tech to lower the likelihood of pirates stealing their women and precious metals. Various improvements could include armor, ship size, shields, cloaking devices, portals (the ultimate improvement but at a high cost per unit shipped), and tactical advances.
Part of the benefit of trades being implemented via shipments is that pirates would be required to watch trade routes 24/7 in order to pirate every shipment - thus making piracy a full-time job. I'm sure some banditos will be up to the challenge. ;)
The Trade Federation
Chris suggested the other day that we create an NPC for facilitating trades after he and I discussed the necessity of governments and currency. I think that the trade federation should actually be run by us with some transactions going through automatically. This would give us oversight on the game's economy.
I thought of another implication for the trade federation on the way home tonight: safer shipments. Players will have the ability to trade with each other directly, but they will also be able to trade for currency at daily-published rates and to schedule shipments via the trade federation. The idea here is that the trade federation should have sufficiently high tech as to make it costly to pirate TF routes.
[Added by Will from phone conversation] Pirating trade routes should lower reputation with the TF. Basically pirates would be shut out from using currency and the higher-quality services of the TF since they would be gaining at the expense of the trade federation.
Portals
Portals should be expensive to run since they will allow arbitrary paths through hyperspace, greatly reducing the travel time between locations and improving security. Sensitive shipments will be routed through portals once players reach the end-game. NOTE: The trade federation will make use of a number of cloaked portals that will be inaccessible to players without the necessary tech to find them. They'll also require encrypted codes to operate - but they will be vulnerable to attack and cracking attempts.
The cost in shipping materials via portal will be based upon the length of time that the portal is kept open and the cost of opening the portal itself. (C + D*t). Portals will only allow ships to move at a slow rate to avoid complications with the wormhole. Due to the cost of operating a portal it will be impractical to use them for shipping anything of low value. High-value resources, armadas, and time-sensitive shipments will be the items most commonly shipped via portals.
Pirates!
Players can choose to act as pirates within the game, although there will be no formal designation given for pirates - unless they choose to name their ships to indicate the fact that they're about to steal your goods. Piracy will affect the economy directly for players who choose not to utilize the trade federation (since the trade federation will be more expensive than shipping items yourself).
Issue: NPC pirates secretly run by the TF?
Certainly sounds cool, but it should be used sparingly. Too much regular intervention from the server will seem like so much of a grind that it will discourage long term gameplay.
This brings up an interesting question - is PVE content something that players go out and find, or is it something that finds you...
My thought here is that in an expansion pack down the road, players could "discover" that the trade federation is actually corrupt and has been pirating routes that aren't controlled by them. We would then setup a competing shipping authority that is not corrupt and encourage players to develop an armada capable of putting the evil trade federation out of business.
The gain for stealing goods from a shipment would be two-fold:
- Net gain of pilots, ships, and goods
- Loss of resources for an enemy
Issue: Should NPC pirates descend upon player bases and attempt to steal resources?
Some minor continuous NPC intervention (well, continuous is too strong of a word) at least periodic enough to warrant checking (or spending resources developing safeguards). I think this would encourage visiting the game frequently, but should not be enough to seem tiresome or like a grind just to maintain an empire.
