Here's a few thoughts I had on this subject. Bottom line: overall, I love the idea of a functional player driven economy and would like to see it implemented in MP servers to the fullest extent, and SP as a voluntary add on. That said, I see several issues with the ideas proposed in the OP here. Pirating of blueprints We already see this without the economic incentive to do so. Taking a blueprint and just slightly tweaking it, and slapping your name on it. This is fine now, when there are no real ramifications except for hurt feelings, but with an economic driver, this could become rampant and very problematic. So what's the solution? There could be two ways to make money off of ships and bases. 1.) Royalties - Every published blueprint can receive a very small royalty for that user in the Empyrion bank system. It can be something like 10 credits for every download, certainly not significant enough for someone to bother pirating it. Those with the most popular blueprints can make a bit of extra pocket cash from their designs, and over time it can add up to a significant wealth. Admittedly the pirating system would probably still persist here, but it would at least be somewhat minimized in consequence. Any suggestions that could remedy this would be welcome. 2.) Direct Sales - You can build ships and bases in the real physical environment, and sell them, either directly to players, or to ship dealers and realtors. The ship dealers and realtors could be both NPCs and actual players. All of these things could be only available on site, in that you either have to pick up the ship on the lot, or pay an extra fee for delivery, or you buy a base that is permanently fixed in the environment of a specific planet. The price of these things can be determined by the popularity of the blueprint, plus the amount of resources it takes to construct it, plus whatever other factors the seller wants to include, such as views, proximity to important resources, safety, uses, etc. There could also potentially be build on location options, where you pay a player to come to a site you've picked and build a base you've picked from their catalog on that location. Price fluctuations/stock trading would be difficult if not impossible to effectively program, not to mention a bit excessive. Solution? Random price ranges for NPC sales Each element or item could have a general price range set, based on the rarity or teir of the item, and that price in the market could vary randomly depending on the location that is selling it. In MP, the prices could be set by the admins of the server, so there is some control there over what each trader is selling, and for how much, in order to make some sense of it based on the dynamics of the given server, as well as to set the difficulty of the server. In SP it would just be randomly generated, based on the seed, so you get differing prices depending on where you travel. All of this would drive the pricing of the player economy. If you can buy something for a certain amount at a trade station, it would be hard to justify buying it for more from directly from a player over the Galactic market, if only for the convenience of not needing to travel. So player prices will probably hover around the ranges that have been set for those items around the galaxy. It doesn't need to be completely changing and dynamic for it to feel realistic, just a set of ranges that change based on location should suffice. Little incentive to use the economy in SP Solution? Economic missions Such missions could be completely voluntary, but would pay handsomely both on credits and in xp. They could include "Deliver 10,000 space oranges to Omicron Trading Station", "Deliver 2000 zascosium ore to Akua Manufacturing Facility", etc. This could facilitate storyline missions, and allow some more interesting NPC interactions that just selling and buying stuff. There could also be bounty missions, as well as escort missions, pirate missions, and building/repair missions. They could be accessible by either a console in trade stations, or by meeting those people directly in various friendly POIs. Not only would these missions pay well, but they would add a whole lot of fun and interest to the game overall, especially for mid to end game. So those who don't want to deal with an economy don't have to, and just do the missions for the fun of it. Just a couple thoughts I had upon browsing the thread. I love the idea overall, and hope to see some form of these mechanics implemented in the future.
I'll throw my suggestion in here as well. I proposed in a couple of my suggestion threads that different regions of a planet be linked to various commodity resources, things that are outside the usable items already in the game. Think like Planetside 2 where so long as you have a functional base within the region with no other enemy structures, you generate a certain macro resource that could be used in an auction house type setup as well as receive passive bonuses of some sort. There are a couple positive knock-on effects of this. The auction house could eventually (like well down the road) be used as a source of usable resources so if you wanted you wouldn't have to mine for ore or scavenge for food if you don't want to, or if your into mining, become a full time miner selling your ores, etc... It would allow for purpose in building more than one base beyond just having a closer spawn point to a POI, it allows POI's to carry even more weight when conquering them, and opens up a sort of governor lite mode to the game where you would strive for control of the entire planet for the various commodities and bonuses it could bestow on your "empire". This could play in to a reputation system where you interact with other AI or player run empires which you can trade/ally/war with. My main thought though is to give greater purpose to the buildings that can be constructed outside your main base of operations, giving function and purpose to those buildings. I realize this is quite a departure from the survival aspects of the game but I feel the potential in Empyrion goes beyond just a survival game. My true wish would be a first quarter survival game, second quarter planet domination, third quarter empire building, and fourth quarter galaxy conquest, keeping the survival aspects throughout but representing your progress by eventually trivializing things like having to hunt for food cause your getting hungry, or having to gather various resources to create medicine cause you got scratched by a bug. It doesn't make sense to be in constant contention with these aspects when you are capable of creating a warp drive and going to other planets... that level of autonomy is afforded by trivializing other aspects of survival. This is likely wishful thinking but I can see the potential in the game already.
Well there are some other systems I suggested in my other threads that I did not put in this post. Think MOO/Stellaris/GalCiv, etc... Grandiose I admit, but in those instances you'd really only need one, yourself. A lot of that is single player driven, though it also applies to multiplayer. Just think, travel to a new world, explore that world, expand your "empire"(Build bases/defenses as well as functional resource generators per region), exploit it's resources and exterminate all alien presence. The world is yours as well as it's resources, making it even easier for you to afford those large ships, the fuel they cost, the ammo they require as well as all the food and medical supplies you would ever need. Really we already do 3 of those 4 above. This is the expand aspect. Much of what I suggest doesn't need a physical representation in the game, though I did make the suggestion that we be able to recruit automated soldiery with squad/army capabilities, but again these suggestions go further and further away from a purely survival game, so this is all mostly wishful thinking on my behalf to be sure. If anyone is interested here is a link to my updated suggestion thread. I combined the two I've done from the last couple of years. https://empyriononline.com/threads/...gestions-from-the-last-couple-of-years.37886/ It's longish...
I just read your message, and it's always a bit sad seeing all this energy and thought in a post with no one caring to give it a nod. It was well written, with lots of content and concise for all points. Some features are already in the game like you noted, and many others could surely be possible via a scenario, although an elaborate one. There are some items I didn't see detailed, notably the following: Cybernetic enhancements --- Tied to another progression system than the tech tree? Any ideas on this ? Particle scanners and collectors and various ways to manipulate the particles to aid in researching anomalies --- I see this is tied with your "Anomalous POIs" topic (here below), but do I get it right that your idea here is some kind of mini-game, or just an elaborate device ? Unique societies and macro events the player can take part in through reputation or combat missions to gain unique rewards like faction specific technology --- These could be rewards from scenario-specific missions, but how would "macro events" work : autonomously, with or without the player interference ? · Helpful AI, either in the form of other survivors or buildable assistants. (Hunter seeker droids for hunting game, foragers to collect local fauna, etc.… (again an advanced tech achievement required as well as many resources)) --- That's the number of "employees" I was asking for. Reading your post hinted at lots of bases/ structures to work simultaneously on a possibly great number of planets/ locations, and I guess you know how heavy for computers the game is already with just a few playfields "running" at the same time. How would you address this ? Anomalous POI’s both in space and on planets such that research and further study are required to understand these anomalies. o Could assist in finding Empyrion or offer “side tasks” if you want to explore the anomaly. New research or tech could be gained by these or they could prove to be the death of you --- This is already possible with the scenario feature, but the "mystery" and "discovery" would evidently be text-based in the present form. I noted previously your suggestion of a "tool" for this purpose, so how would you describe the player interactions and the "physical representations" of this whole idea in the game ? · (For the survival nuts out there) Permadeath (with cloning?) --- If you add "cloning" to revive the player then it is not "permadeath" I suppose. And without cloning, I hardly see players reaching the latest stages of "galactic conquest" with all what it implies of dangers and risks. Which one would you keep? To be very honest and blunt, I could say that most of what you wrote has been suggested or discussed in more than one form and time. I read many of these previously to your long post, and you got the essence of many of these previous suggestions good enough. And where these other suggestions failed at searching integration with the whole game, yours tried to tie ends together. I can only hope that Empyrion gets the flexibility to allow players to make elaborate scenarios and maybe give them enough handles to mod the progression system (or create new ones), factions, & other things you mention. But given the pace at which the game advances and the relative "scale" of features being made in a given time, what you propose would evidently take a lot of time to make if left to the developers alone. That's one of the reasons that made many players conclude that the game would benefit immensely from being "moddable" but if this will be the case only time will tell.
Thank you for the kind words! I'm not too bothered that nobody commented or noted much as I posted with the hope that maybe the devs would take a peak and poach some of the ideas from it. I'm glad that some of it had been suggested already and that some of it is known as that makes it more likely that they did see some of the suggestions at one point or another. As to the specifics of the ideas that weren't detailed: Cybernetics would likely be a separate line of research with its positive and negative effects, enhancing your combat abilities, cutting down on hunger, immunity towards disease but more prone to random infection or malfunction at an inopportune moment. Particle scanners and collectors would be a profession one could take up to further augment yourself through discovery of new particles and the research options they would open up or the possible tech advances that could be made from the discovery. Similar to the mining profession I suggested (not original by any means!) but more a game-play addition than anything else which could be outright ignored due to the dangers introduced or focused for enhancement purposes. I envision them being something like a field of radiation that your detector would pick up on which can be approached then studied, possibly through an automated scanner that you can set and forget then return to. For the space anomalies, think Star Trek: TNG and all the scenarios that came up when they discovered something anomalous. Again, something else to do beyond fighting/building/surviving. Unique societies and Macro events would be autonomous to add some randomness to the game through the suggested reputation system. Just like the bounty idea where you may be notified whether a new bounty has come up or that you yourself have become the target of a bounty, these could pop up randomly through a news roll once you establish yourself in space, or you could cause something to happen between your faction and the AI or another players. So not entirely autonomous. As for the AI assistance I was motivated by the progression of the tech tree and wanted to see a level of advancement where you no longer are required to forage and hunt for your food or medicine to represent the autonomy provided by such advancement. I know in real life that is possible because of society and others that provide the food and medicine we buy but thought automation, being what it is in the game, could supplement that for us as well. As for all the bases and structures I propose I was thinking that at some point in the future they will be optimizing the game so I had the hopes that we would be able to support a decent amount of structures across a planet, nothing crazy like full blown cities but something simple like a resource hub that takes advantage of the regional resource so long as you control that region. This would be your base for that region so really only one building would be required for that. The defensive structures are also not that big, generally speaking, so those combined with the POI's that are already present shouldn't bog the system down that much, though admittedly I am not a game designer and am unfamiliar with such things. Also, as the game stands now my strategy for POI raiding is to create a forward base of operations near the POI in question so I generally have more than a few bases up and running as it is. I suggested permadeath before the cloning chamber was introduced but suggested the cloning chamber with the idea that it would actually be a high level tech unlock to represent it's complexity, so it wouldn't be readily available making a portion of the game highly intense. I would absolutely make it an option though as it could make for some great gameplay stories for those willing to give it a go. Also you generally value your achievements far more with the prospect of death looming over you with no way to come back. Advancing to the cloning chamber should be a massive achievement in and of itself so that's why I thought it could work. There is also the possibility that your base could be attacked and you could lose your cloning chamber so that without another one you may have to make a tough choice at some point. I am unfamiliar with the scenarios and what they are exactly as I've been playing the default game when I'm not in creation mode so I am not too sure what is capable with that. I am in full agreement with you in regards to modding capabilities though. Every game that I've played that was modifiable absolutely benefited from it's presence so I would love it if the devs did something towards that. I really do appreciate your time for reading and questioning some of this though! I know we are all very busy people and reading something with length on a forum can seem like a waste of time.
Not a waste of time when focus is kept on the idea and the game! But I can bet the developers don't have this time that players have to skim around forums. Honestly, apart from some little demands for a new block shape or a laser sabre, we don't see that many players with a global vision of the game, so it almost always stands out of the lot. Even though there are discussions on physics and other "elaborate features" or mechanics, they tend to drift into abstraction and usually end up into some monstrosity that the devs must try to hide from... and seeing the (highly variable) gap between what is asked and what we get helps to feel the shadow of a hint of how the developers may think... *hem* But to your proposals. Regarding simultaneous playfields supporting many player-controlled NPCs, an autonomous "events" system with interacting factions and "bounties", news broadcasts, lots of automation and unattended player structures going on with their business... all these are not actually "seen" by the player at all times. I understood that your "vision" of all these features is that the player has some "feedback" from the game about what is happening wherever he has interests, and some amount of control over it. The scenario can allow us to create a set of events/ triggers, it can keep track of some actions, but it doesn't have enough flexibility or control yet. In fact to take your "galactic conquest" past the "1 active playfield" limitation we have now would require that all relevant game events run "separately" from playfields, so they would be "available" at anytime on any playfield. Having a new progression system is a different story, and implies lots of changes in the way the game keeps track of player actions. I think the developers are making some progression towards this, one little step at a time. The system is very linear presently and simple "quests" are easily broken if players don't follow a strict chain of actions. This can give you a hint of the road ahead to get to a point where a player will have the equivalent of a "global control panel" for game management, and where NPCs and "societies" run a series of inter-dependant scenarios with timed events and triggers running independantly from playfields loaded, without impacting the game too much.
No not seen at all times, but established by the player (outside the autonomous civs and their events and the bounty system) so that when you establish a base in a given region and recruit/create your defense forces, they are at least represented by a handful of NPC's (nothing so drastic as to see an entire army doing it's thing). If there were to be a global control panel type thing, I think it would be similar to how it is broken down in a game like Endless Space, where you get bare-bone facts regarding the planet but with the cool caveat of actually being able to visit your resource generating building and it's garrison that you yourself built. I think I called this a governor lite mode or something to that effect. As to the playfields, I'm not quite sure what that means. I'm guessing it is the solar system that we are in or the planets inside their atmosphere, though that would make multiple playfields with space being a playfield as well. I do believe there is an intention on creating a representation of a galaxy by creating multiple solar systems to visit though I don't know if that is still the intention of the devs. We just got toroidal planets so the galaxy expansion is likely way down the road still, if at all. It's still alpha though so there is so much that will be implemented still!
That is exactly the case : each time there is a "loading screen" (warp to another planet = change of "space" playfield, getting down on a planet = change playfield from "space" to "planet", etc). What happens in a playfield simply "stops" when a player leaves, for example the plants stop growing, the constructors stop making stuff, water collectors stop collecting water, etc. Whe the player re-enters the playfield everything resume activity where it was left. In multiplayer, a playfield is "active" only if there's a player present, so one player can leave and as long as another player stayed there his machines & plants will continue normally during his absence. Back to singleplayer : when a playfield is inactive (player not there) nothing happens, so any autonomous society/ player related business simply stops. To have a "persistent" world, all activities part of your "scenario" have to keep running independantly of playfields. If a player leaves a "conquered planet" where he has "automated resource gathering" (example) the gathering stops when the player leaves and only resumes when he's back. Maintaining multiple playfields running at the same time (planets, "orbits", moons) is very costly on performances presently. What the game has to do is to "simulate" what happens on a playfield once the player has left it (tasks, events) in a way that doesn't require too much CPU time, and the first step would be to try this "inter-playfield" event tracking/ simulation in a simple space + planet setup.
Man great minds think alike! I have been saying this for the longest time. It is great to see someone shares my interests and passion for making empyrion bigger than just another empty survival game. I'm so relieved that ya'll have taken interest in this thread. It is about time for a breath of fresh air since it had gone off subject quite a few times lol. I wholeheartedly agree with that formula, so kudos to you and keep thinking outside the box
Interesting I was not aware of that at all, it never occurred to me that was going on when I left the planet. I always assumed whatever I left on would just continue running, no I don't have to worry if I left the lights on or the constructor and coming back to a dead base. So basically multiplayer is the only way to have more than one active playfield. I like the idea of simulation taking the place of actual activity though since it would essentially be a bunch of numbers that would have to be kept track of. Only issue is there will be no actual changes taking place while you are away unless upon loading the playfield those simulated numbers are applied to the playfield and loaded up as if they took place. That is likely a tall order to achieve however. Back to the simulation though, it seems like it would be possible to have any number of events taking place through that, no matter where you are at any given moment. Hypothetically, if you were in a different solar system, your bases in your home solar system could still be attacked, you could still lose a region that way, or successfully defend it based off your local defenses and it would at least seem that it was happening in real time. the question then is would it be feasible to say be in orbit, get a notification of impending attack then load in to the playfield as the attack was occurring, basically can the simulations be loaded on demand? That may be a far stretch to have something like that implemented as Empyrion seems completely geared towards your point of view entirely at the moment. I don't know, I'm speaking towards things that I am unfamiliar with!
You are actually describing almost exactly a previous suggestion I made in a specific thread, even with some of the problems other players submitted, which was subsequently incorporated in @michaelhartman89 's "recap" of suggestions.
If it had been me, I would have STARTED with the design for the economic system and worried about the 3D extravaganza and even the procedural voxel / building world parts until later . . . which probably would have made the game a "stinker." But then again Dwarf Fortress, Distant Worlds Universe and Rimworld are not doing too badly . . . That said: Eleon is in a uniquely favorable position. They have an impressively beautiful, intricate, compelling game world setup. All the props, all the sets, all the archetypes (though not the "characters") are there, but as of yet, there is no real story. There is no real drama, no real tension, nothing that can stand the test of time. It is an extraordinarily well-done tech demo, which obviously would be an excellent medium to weave innumerable stories, but so far, no clear hint of that intent from them. But yes, some semblance of an economy would be requisite, and the set of suggestions in the OP is superlative.
Can agree with this. One of the hard parts of making Sandboxes is they require the largest Foundation & largest number of Parts out of all Game Genres.
I want to hiring NPC with cash or cake as energy. For example... Farmer: Harvest 8 squares around (can not place a sprout the center of 9 spaces) to cargo every 60 or 90 game-minutes. (should be slowly) Maintainer: Repair some small-damaged blocks in base every 30 game-minutes (assumed cause: could not find it). Yes, I am very forgetful... [Joke] suicide the hired NPC when energy(cash) as empty. as like as Ultim... *coff* *coff*
Friend - you want too much to bring Earth "mistakes" to far space (!!!) ........ Imperion is a SURVIVAL game, (not a commercial "Monopoly" (!) In outer space - you are ONE ..... sometimes you meet the "remnants" of your civilization ... you can both help each other to survive, and meanly kill a representative of your race to take his property! ..... once again - you are ONE in the asshole of the galaxy - you build your ship TO SURVIVE (!) and travel further ... But if you have met extraterrestrial intelligent beings - then freely trade ... The current economy MAYBE need to be slightly improved, BUT DO NOT TURN IT INTO AN EXTREME REPLICA OF THE EARTH (!!!)
Give us Ai helpers, and make it so we have to send them to Trade stations to get educated in blocks / modules. The first block might be Gardening. The second block piloting, things like that. Make it expensive, make it so we have to physically go to the Trade station to make payment with cash. Give players the ability to steal AI workers from other players with a brainwashing device or something that can only be used inside of a Trade station. Give players a brainwashing device jammer to defend while at Trade stations. Make all of this very high tier stuff. But allow AI droids or workers early game, and allow them to start basic education early, as the player climbs through the tiers, he can unlock training modules in the tech tree, allowing the player to send the AI bot / droid / worker to the Trade station to complete the education module / block. This put expensive assets on the board, perfect for the economy and something like that is really needed, money still is not all that valuable in Empyrion.
Very much in favor of a more robust economy, especially one where we can take on trader roles, moving materials between suppliers and clients. These would make for some good "replayable missions" for Polaris factions (haul X number of Y to trader at Z). I could see these being done per-planet, short-range (HV), long range (HV/SV), between planet and its moon (SV/SV/HV), or between planets (SV/CV) or even star systems (CV). Combine some rival faction action (Zirax don't want Polaris receiving shipments of new illudium pu-36 explosive space modulators) and try to take down the vessels hauling them, and this brings a whole new dimension of game play to life. Conversely, missions to stop freighters and/or steal cargo, would also be both fun and challenging and make the economy more lively, especially if these actions reduce supply and increase demand.
Or they could just grab a copy of AFF and check that out and maybe borrow some of its AI features. Because that capability in this game, holy cow. Lots of instant fun, for SP, and for MP. Would seriously liven the game up. AFF you get 5 or 6 AI soldiers to help raid space bases. Its hot fast action, and the game feels like an older style LAN game we used to play. Angels Fall First is pretty average in its AI complexity, its mostly pathfinding, precisely what Eleon are doing with there AI, mostly all pathfinding, but it does show whats possible using just that technique. And whats possible is alot of fun. The only question I have is the pathfinding, how does it address the multiple base designs in Empyrion, in AFF they are set pieces the stations. So in Empyrion the pathfinding needs to be a little bit more dynamic, capable of pathing through different shaped bases, and maybe even changing base shapes, depending how many times a minute it reports or re-scans the pathways. But even if troopers was all we ever got in Empyrion, it would liven the game up so much, it would start to out shine some of the AAA games out there. Helper AI, a fair bit more complex, because the tasks we ask it to do, are so much trickier to program for, hundreds of checks to be written, for each AI work of a different variety. So just helper troops is much simpler from what I can tell. Troops can follow you, got to a position, hold a position, attack a position, patrol a position, and have abcde defcon settings. Example, a - highest level of deadlyness. lol is that even a word ! b - offencive mode c - neutral mode d - defensive mode e - Allied mode. These are just examples there could be more or less. But its clear to see where thats going, how much fun would it be to raid in PvP, other folks bases with a few troops you can use to flank and stuff, and the enemy can do the same to defend, I see epic wars coming if they do anything like this. Epic wars, get good publicity, like Eve has for some of its battles. You could do the same thing with troops though, send to trade stations to learn battle modules, and skills for battle. Empyrion is capable of becoming something truly special with AI.
