Rebalance - third go
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FluffyFreak
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Re: Rebalance - third go
Nice looking system and I like the naming scheme too :D
Re: Rebalance - third go
I think it would be a shame to let this one fizzle away! I know, the momentum may be gone, but the need is still there and many spent hours are hidden in this thread.
For market balance comparisons I dug around and could not find any good market numbers for Frontier/FFE, except for ship data (includes price per ship): http://www.sharoma.com/frontierverse/ship_specs.htm.
I did find a nice database with market values (average/high/low) for Elite Dangerous though: https://eddb.io/commodity. No data on ship prices there though. If we can find ship specs, including prices, and someone can enlighten us on how much time/effort a typical trade run takes in Elite Dangerous, we may be able to compare to the data impaktor created and adjust our current system? Just a thought...
For market balance comparisons I dug around and could not find any good market numbers for Frontier/FFE, except for ship data (includes price per ship): http://www.sharoma.com/frontierverse/ship_specs.htm.
I did find a nice database with market values (average/high/low) for Elite Dangerous though: https://eddb.io/commodity. No data on ship prices there though. If we can find ship specs, including prices, and someone can enlighten us on how much time/effort a typical trade run takes in Elite Dangerous, we may be able to compare to the data impaktor created and adjust our current system? Just a thought...
Re: Rebalance - third go
I did some "price suggestor" in that ship stat editor Blender add-on, but I can't really remember how it exactly calculated price. It took mass, volume and other stuff into account, and had a multiplier too for control. And I think it also had importance multipliers for each stat it took into account, so it could be finetuned. But I don't really remember if it turned aout to be any workable. But I guess it could be redone in a spreadsheet.
Re: Rebalance - third go
Since Frontier was pretty well balanced, and Pioneer isn't, I think it's reasonable to, as a first approximation just plagiarize Frontier's system. (I haven't read previous posts in a long time, so apologies if I repeat myself).
Ideally, I think when starting out you start as a trader, and taking some package delivery missions if you're that trusted. The following is how I'd go about it if I were to do it now, I think:
1. Check spread / variance of price for each commodity in pioneer vs. frontier (normalized to one for easy plotting and comparison). I suspect we don't have that much spread. Link above by clausimu to Elite: Dangerous should be useful. Now question is what price distribution they're using. Since it appears to have a hard max/min(?) I assume it's a uniform, although in a "real" market I'd expect Gaussian / a.k.a. "bell curve". But uniform would give the appearance of more diverse price setting, compared to Gaussian, where most stations would have approximately the same price (or is this what we want?).
2. After we have duplicated the same spread of commodity prices, we need to think through how many "runs" should be required to get "that next ship" (Here I suspect our ships are too expensive?). Here we can compare typical cargo hold capacity vs. price in Frontier for the starter ships. (Assuming speed, and other factors are approximately not that important). It could give some kind of ball-park estimate of prices. Or check how many runs hauling some profitable good some route would take, and adjust to Pioneer?
3. Missions. I guess check typical prices for missions in Frontier. What are some typical prices for "beginner" missions, "intermediate" missions, and then the "higher up" missions.
Pricing for bigger ships, especially non-trader vessels might be more tricky. I'd like to think logarithmic about this: make sure to be factor 10 within reasonable price for a small, medium and large ship. Then place other ships on the same scale, by comparing to those already there. Just need a benchmark small-crappy-ship, medium-I'm-becoming-someone-ship, large/nice-I've-made-it-ship; and make sure the price isn't 10 times too small or too big.
Ideally, I think when starting out you start as a trader, and taking some package delivery missions if you're that trusted. The following is how I'd go about it if I were to do it now, I think:
1. Check spread / variance of price for each commodity in pioneer vs. frontier (normalized to one for easy plotting and comparison). I suspect we don't have that much spread. Link above by clausimu to Elite: Dangerous should be useful. Now question is what price distribution they're using. Since it appears to have a hard max/min(?) I assume it's a uniform, although in a "real" market I'd expect Gaussian / a.k.a. "bell curve". But uniform would give the appearance of more diverse price setting, compared to Gaussian, where most stations would have approximately the same price (or is this what we want?).
2. After we have duplicated the same spread of commodity prices, we need to think through how many "runs" should be required to get "that next ship" (Here I suspect our ships are too expensive?). Here we can compare typical cargo hold capacity vs. price in Frontier for the starter ships. (Assuming speed, and other factors are approximately not that important). It could give some kind of ball-park estimate of prices. Or check how many runs hauling some profitable good some route would take, and adjust to Pioneer?
3. Missions. I guess check typical prices for missions in Frontier. What are some typical prices for "beginner" missions, "intermediate" missions, and then the "higher up" missions.
Pricing for bigger ships, especially non-trader vessels might be more tricky. I'd like to think logarithmic about this: make sure to be factor 10 within reasonable price for a small, medium and large ship. Then place other ships on the same scale, by comparing to those already there. Just need a benchmark small-crappy-ship, medium-I'm-becoming-someone-ship, large/nice-I've-made-it-ship; and make sure the price isn't 10 times too small or too big.
Re: Rebalance - third go
I'd say small crappy ship should be the Xylophis or Varada, for medium-becoming-sombody would be the Bluenose or Deneb, and the large would be the Malabar or Vatakara.
Re: Rebalance - third go
Also, this might be useful: The current stats of our ships (google sheet).
First tab is the current stats, second tab is a more realistic approach I played with, the third one has some charts, the fourth contains stuff for the drop-downs for class and manufacturer. On the fourth tab I started to do some benchmarking, but haven't got far.
I have some calculated data in there too, like ratios, deltaVs and accelerations for several states (fuel only, full hold, last drop of fuel etc.) and so on.
First tab is the current stats, second tab is a more realistic approach I played with, the third one has some charts, the fourth contains stuff for the drop-downs for class and manufacturer. On the fourth tab I started to do some benchmarking, but haven't got far.
I have some calculated data in there too, like ratios, deltaVs and accelerations for several states (fuel only, full hold, last drop of fuel etc.) and so on.
Re: Rebalance - third go
Once we have the variance of price - how to distribute that variability among systems/bases? It would be more logical for a player if commodity price depended on system factors (population, lawlessness, technology level, major economies). Actually, Gaussian distribution makes a lot of sense, as long as the actual price depends on system stats.
Example: Robots. Price depends on system technology level (does that even exist? or did impaktor re-create this per station?) along a Gaussian ("bell curve") spread where most bases have minor differences in price but trading from really high-tech to really low-tech provides nice profits. Or is that the way it is supposed to be right now? If so, we just have to tweak the spread and min/max a little better.
nozmajner: thank you for the link!! I was secretly hoping for a source like that! :)
Example: Robots. Price depends on system technology level (does that even exist? or did impaktor re-create this per station?) along a Gaussian ("bell curve") spread where most bases have minor differences in price but trading from really high-tech to really low-tech provides nice profits. Or is that the way it is supposed to be right now? If so, we just have to tweak the spread and min/max a little better.
nozmajner: thank you for the link!! I was secretly hoping for a source like that! :)
Re: Rebalance - third go
I gathered that data to aid this rebalance go, then expanded it with the calculations. I have now added a price calculator to it too, but for some reason it only works with the original order of rows, if you sort the list the prices go around. I have to figure that out.
The price suggestor has a lot of ways to tweak the importance of the price of each area, like hull, computers, etc, and it takes some commodity prices into account too, like metals and machinery. There's also a general multiplyer, so one can adjust prices by hand a bit. Like OPLI ships are cheaper than Mandarava ones, and Haber is even cheaper.
The price suggestor has a lot of ways to tweak the importance of the price of each area, like hull, computers, etc, and it takes some commodity prices into account too, like metals and machinery. There's also a general multiplyer, so one can adjust prices by hand a bit. Like OPLI ships are cheaper than Mandarava ones, and Haber is even cheaper.
Re: Rebalance - third go
Hmm, that price suggestor seems to give some nice and lower prices.
The sheet compares the ship price to the price of a same mass of precious metals (Earth price). Most ships go above that benchmark quite much, which makes sense (Fighter planes are quite similar in that regard in reality), but still far lower than the prices we currently have.
The sheet compares the ship price to the price of a same mass of precious metals (Earth price). Most ships go above that benchmark quite much, which makes sense (Fighter planes are quite similar in that regard in reality), but still far lower than the prices we currently have.
Re: Rebalance - third go
I'm reviving this old post to add my ideas about intra-system jumps.
Sorry about the wall of text but this 'essay' has been simmering for a long time. ;)
First of all we already have a pseudo-scifi behavior of the hyperdrive.
It needs an amount of fuel based on the distance and other factors. It also needs to target a gravity well, apparently falling into it through hyperspace. There's a curve downward into the well, but there's also a curve going upward based on the mass of the object. When the two intersect your tunnel becomes unstable and you enter normal space. That's how I visualize it, anyway.
I think that intra-system jumps should use the same behavior scaled, down. You're in the gravity well, so the engine has to work much harder. The fuel use would be the same. A ship that uses one ton of fuel to jump 10 LY might use the same amount to jump 10 AU. Again this would be targeting a planet and you would enter normal space based on its mass. The jump range could also be affected by how deep the ship was in the gravity well. It might take 2 tons to jump to Mercury because of its proximity to Sol. A player may not be able to jump to Mercury directly and have to decide between jumping to Jupiter to refuel or travel in normal space until they're within range. The time in hyperspace would be scaled down so that 1 ton = 1 LY= 1 day might be 1 ton = 1 AU = 1 hour. All the numbers above are place holders.
Second, the plane of the systems should determine your exit point. If system A is directly above system B then you arrive at system B's North pole. This point could be patrolled by police or pirates based on system type and trade routes. A player might avoid contact by jumping to an intermediate system first, because they'd enter the system from a different point.
And third, I think a bulk ship near a station would significantly affect commodity prices and availability, possibly planet wide.
Sorry about the wall of text but this 'essay' has been simmering for a long time. ;)
First of all we already have a pseudo-scifi behavior of the hyperdrive.
It needs an amount of fuel based on the distance and other factors. It also needs to target a gravity well, apparently falling into it through hyperspace. There's a curve downward into the well, but there's also a curve going upward based on the mass of the object. When the two intersect your tunnel becomes unstable and you enter normal space. That's how I visualize it, anyway.
I think that intra-system jumps should use the same behavior scaled, down. You're in the gravity well, so the engine has to work much harder. The fuel use would be the same. A ship that uses one ton of fuel to jump 10 LY might use the same amount to jump 10 AU. Again this would be targeting a planet and you would enter normal space based on its mass. The jump range could also be affected by how deep the ship was in the gravity well. It might take 2 tons to jump to Mercury because of its proximity to Sol. A player may not be able to jump to Mercury directly and have to decide between jumping to Jupiter to refuel or travel in normal space until they're within range. The time in hyperspace would be scaled down so that 1 ton = 1 LY= 1 day might be 1 ton = 1 AU = 1 hour. All the numbers above are place holders.
Second, the plane of the systems should determine your exit point. If system A is directly above system B then you arrive at system B's North pole. This point could be patrolled by police or pirates based on system type and trade routes. A player might avoid contact by jumping to an intermediate system first, because they'd enter the system from a different point.
And third, I think a bulk ship near a station would significantly affect commodity prices and availability, possibly planet wide.